Poetry on Time

Poetry on Time

Hibernating over the long winter,

If only it was at rest.

Piecing together what begins to splinter,

Remembering the best.

Deep in the cave

Lost in the dark.

Trying to save

What has broken apart.

Awash like flotsam, those you cannot retrieve,

Jetsam memories, born from distress, tossed.

The truth is between what I know and believe,

Some, though valuable, still they are lost.

Mourning the past,

Lives we were unable to live.

Tide comes in fast,

Giving all the effort I can give:

Surfing a tube, riding a wave

Rapidly escaping disaster.

Moving, crouching, hoping to stay,

On the surfboard going faster and faster.

Crashing on the rocks

Hurtling to the bottom.

Reality is what shocks

And this poetry is solemn*

Where does man find solace?

A story w/ chapters we don’t want to read.

With age it happens to all of us,

There are dreams lost, we have to concede.

Trouble comes not from what we don’t know,

But instead, about which we're sure.

When we find out that it "just ain’t so,"[i]

We go looking for a cure.

How to move from resentment to gratitude?[ii]

Fighting, entangled in the rope of an anchor.

A daily journey, a choice of our attitude,

Let go of the weight, unless it will sink her.

Complaining too long,

He built up a wall.

Instead sing a song,

Give thanks for it all!

God orchestrates, guides your life.

Journey's steps, movements of grace,

Assured as we are, there will be strife,

It proceeds quickly, memories fade.

Time is currency as valuable as money,

When we’re young, we’re inestimably rich.

Water is calm, morning is sunny,

Hook something, even if fishing in a borrow-ditch.

The present is not a potential past,

It's the moment of choice and action.[iii]

What if imaginations are recast?

Living each day with passion.

Can’t sit still,

For whenever we stop.

Think what you will,

But in order to reach the top.

Climbing the tall hill,

Jumping over hands of a clock.

Each second passes like a beating heart

The pace of time ticking with the clock.

From the moment life is fated to start,

Racing forward, until it stops.

Warping, winding, twisting, grinding,

The fabric of time swirls into a black hole.

Grasping, stretching, flowing down into my mind.

Déjà vu year-after-year, only repeating what you know?

Expanding outward, like rings on a tree

Forest, tree, leaf; years, weeks, hours.

Covered in bark, growth isn’t seen,

Progress you can’t see, I don’t know yours.

Memories past, do not last

Future uncertain as the next warm sunrise.

What if you had only one day to pass?

Lived w/ purpose, experienced w/ surprise.

Priorities match the time allotted,

But that begins if you assume:

Tomorrow could be funeral-plotted,

Cold, dry, deep, where one cannot exhume.

Let us eat drink and be merry

For tomorrow we die?[iv]

Is there gain if you hurry,

Look to color, life, and beauty, w/ your eye.

Take time to listen more than speak

Any banquet, in memory, won’t compare.

A heavenly city with golden streets,[v]

Home when you get up there.

Limited by time and space

God seems abstract.

To know him, seeing his face,

Is a relationship realistic, a fact?

Living life backward,

Momentum would build.

Becoming childlike, living son-ward,

Death/birth ending, small, and stilled.

Wise to unwise,

Robust to small.

Memories counter-clockwise,

To the simplest of all.

Original love in mother’s eyes,

Life's gift begins in adoration.

Bonding one can only categorize,

As the link to another generation.

You are this moment now,

At once, there is no other.[vi]

No past, no future; no why, no how,

Having met the “unmoved-mover”[vii]

If you gave up the time to read these verses,

May I leave you with a warning:

They don’t put hitches on hearses,

You aren’t guaranteed tomorrow morning.

Don't piece together what is shattered and broken,

Sweep it up, throw it out, it’s best to let it go.

Memories are real, they can't go unspoken,

This is something everyone knows...

But knowing how time works,

Being comfortable with its flow?

Thoughts, memories, even these words,

Melt away like snow.

Days grow like grass,

Flourishing like flowers in the field.[viii]

The wind comes, blowing hard; alas,

Beauty and youth once known, must yield.

*Dedicated to Brent:

Graduated, pledged, 

grew up together,

Away we both went.

He just passed away,

So much to say today.

(But too much unsaid)

I didn’t know he would be dead.

Despite being gone,

He lived a meaningful life.

#RIP DBP[ix] 

With a tear in my eye.

Knowing my sorrow, counting my tears,

God, you kept them in a bottle.[x]

Taking refuge in you thru the years,

My home is found in your gospel.

(end)

Poetry©Mark H. Pillsbury (2019)

---

[i] Mark Twain

[ii] Henri Nouwen

[iii] Simone de Beauvoir

[iv] Apostle Paul

[v] Revelation 21:21

[vi] Ennis

[vii] Aristotle

[viii] Psalms

[ix] D. Brent Pogue

[x] Psalm 56:8

Rhino Ranch: final book in the Thalia TX series, 

Starting with The Last Picture Show (1966)

(Book Review)

Like Duane Moore, I’ve walked through 5 books in what began as the Thalia Trilogy and evolved into a series of novels by Larry McMurtry:  The Last Picture Show [“LPS”] (1966), Texasville (1987), Duane’s Depressed [“DD”] (1999), When the Light Goes [“WTLG”] (2007), and finally, Rhino Ranch [“RR”] (2009). That totals approximately 1,760 pages, dating back to 1966 when Duane and the gang were allegedly in high school, placing the beginning circa 1952. The final two books provide some hilarity and probably could have been combined into one longer episode, because they were published within two-years of each other (2007, 2009).

I will always picture Jacy played by the beautiful Cybil Shepherd; but Duane seems hard to characterize, because he is in many ways the Texas “everyman.” McMurtry wrote into Duane the “id” of every Texas male growing up and aging in small town Texas; the unorganized part of his personality structure that contains Duane's basic, instinctual drives is essentially the first-person narrator throughout the entire series. Duane wants to know and (maybe) be known. Duane tries to understand women, sex, his family, the oil business, how a small town runs, his doctors, and most of all the crazy inbred, narrow-minded characters inhabiting Thalia TX. The ranching era is gone, replaced by the era of the picture show and abundant oil, but McMurtry's strength in the series isn't just his historical description of the small town changing into the modern era, but also his deep understanding of the minds and emotions of all the people living and changing along with the times.

Occasionally, the narrative ran off in the ditch, but over the process of reading 5 long novels McMurtry shows that that is life in a little town with one blinking traffic light. Even Karla wove a little out of her lane, or stopped paying attention for a few seconds; and it got her smack-dab in the middle of the front grill of a huge milk truck. It’s easy to get side-tracked in Duane’s wanderings and wondering, but the pace just keeps slowly walking forward through his interesting life; the reader dumbly walking beside him like “Double Aught”, the big black creature in RR. During the LPS and for a small portion of  the book Texasville; the reader thinks that the series is about Sonny Crawford, but he leaves the scene in the middle of the 5 books, somewhere in DD; unhealthy, bitter, and alone—never really over his annulled marriage to Jacy at the end of high school.

There are strong women in the series: Jacy, Genevieve, Jacy’s mother Lois, Karla, Ruth, Jenny, Honor, Annie, K.K., Casey, Dal, and Nattie. Duane consistently struggles with how to communicate and relate to these antagonists, although he remains consistently attractive to women at all stages in his life, even marrying someone much younger, when in his 60s, he couples with the rich dilettante, Annie Cameron, from Marin County, California.

At times the prevalence of sex in these novels is overpowering, but the casual interplay of sexual relationships is a big part of small town living. (R-rating throughout) In the 70's oil boomtown Thalia, sex was just what was going on, as common and unimaginative as their fine-dining choices.

Seeing Duane’s worldview as he contemplates aging, fatherhood, the nature of his striving, his work, and the tension between his person-hood and his performance, made him one of the most relatable characters in Texas fiction. Like Mississippi's Walker Percy, Willie Morris, or William Faulkner, Larry McMurtry is one of this state's greatest writers.

"In his most powerful scenes, especially encounters between Ruth Popper, the wife of Thalia football coach, and Sonny Crawford, the high school student at the center of the novel, the intensity builds not so much through events as through McMurtry's preternaturally precise rendering of what each character is experiencing. Thoughts and feelings culminate in actions or spoken words that then ripple outward, provoking new joys, fears, hesitancies, hopes, longings." (quote by author/critic Gregory Curtis)

I especially understood his desire for true "presence" in his relationships, and distrust of those who merely used him for his money, power, reputation, good looks, or youth. As Duane finally went to a psychiatrist to treat his depression, we all got to watch the peeling back of his psychic “onion” to the point where he finally inspected what made him tick. Although his complex relationship with Honor (his psychiatrist) evolved, at first the counseling sessions rang especially true.

Surely Texan songwriter Don Henley read these books, and in 1989, after LPS and Texasville were separated by 21-years, he wrote “Heart of the Matter”, w/ maybe the long story of Duane’s love life and his personal struggles in his mind:

“There are people in your life who've come and gone,
They let you down, and hurt your pride,
Better put it all behind you; life goes on.
You keep carrin' that anger, it'll eat you up inside” (Don Henley--1989)

When it comes down to it, the heart of these novels and the conclusion of Duane’s story is all about forgiveness. Duane had to forgive his own mother, his best friends, Sam the Lion, Sonny, Jacy, Karla and his kids, as well as all the women he’d loved who let him down. He forgave the little town of Thalia, but most of all, he learned to forgive himself. In order to begin this process, Duane had to quit striving, park his pick-up, and step off of the carousel. Along with intense counseling and long introspective walks, it was also a major heart attack which brought him to a new place of self-awareness. At a point in DD he decides that he’s passed too much of life driving around in his pick-up and so he parks it and begins walking everywhere. His closest friends, family, even the everyday citizen of Thalia thought he had gone crazy, but in fact he’d stepped off the conveyor belt of life, and the cardiovascular benefits of all that walking probably saved his life when the heart attack struck him later.

Rhino Ranch (copyright©2009 by Simon & Schuster, New York) completed the series of novels in the same way an old man’s thoughts jump around in clipped, staccato speech patterns. Was it deliberately written to be indicative of the weakened brain of an elderly person? The short chapters often humored me, yet much of it was sad; it was good to see Duane reach a point of peace with many of the ghosts of his past. 

The long history of Thalia, which survived on gossip, personified by its most memorable citizen, comes to an end with this book. Powerfully connecting with a literary character on such a personal level is the sign of good writing. Wanting to see him grow and succeed, missing him every day before you are compelled to return to the story before bedtime: this is why I strongly recommend the investment it takes to read these novels. Mr. McMurtry has my sincere admiration for giving me a new friend; but was I predisposed to relate to Duane because I’ve also walked a similar path over many decades? I don’t think so. 

With a wide array of characters and worldviews expressed during the stories, McMurtry gives any reader a chance to see through another’s eyes, and none of the characters are especially evil or troublesome—just very human; interconnecting like only a small town can do. The final two volumes play out as sweetly and poignantly as the long, full life of Duane Moore, with many people stepping on and off his stage, living and dying and touching his life in some unique way. It was brought to a realistic, respectful conclusion and even though I will probably never return to this series; I'll never forget little Thalia. (5-***** for all five books) 

copyright©2016 by Mark H. Pillsbury

9-11 Tribute After 13 years: R is for Resiliency

R is for: Resiliency

“The good folks mostly win, courage usually triumphs over fear, the family dog hardly ever contracts rabies; these are the things I knew at twenty-five, and things I still know now, at the age of 25 X 2. But I know something else as well: there’s a place in most of us where the rain is pretty much constant, the shadows are always long, and the woods are full of monsters. It is good to have a voice in which the terrors of such a place can be articulated and its geography partially described, without denying the sunshine and clarity that fill so much of our ordinary lives.” –Stephen King (April 16, 1996)

 

If I’ve learned anything through trials and travails, it’s that even though life seems short, ephemeral, and progress only seen dimly as through a dark opaque window; there is always the power to rise to the moment, and summon the courage to change. This is my voice articulating a vision of the geography of the dark places we face; and after so many years--maybe even some of those affected by 9/11 have navigated out of the dark forest.

Freedom Tower, Manhattan

 

Even when one seems too old, tired, or uncomprehending of how to alter their course; by taking deliberate steps down another path, I’ve seen durable people transform themselves and their situations remarkably. "In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning," said F. Scott Fitzgerald; however, let me assure you, there is always a way out, the morning after.

Sometimes it means realistically dropping one dream, now cumbersome baggage; developing another set of goals. Other than developing a love to read and learn; this might be one of the keys to unlocking life’s complexities, and is certainly something I want to bestow upon my children: resiliency.

Those fortunate to have their wits and health, living in this great land of opportunity, and with God’s sovereign blessing, can get up one morning and resolve to change; indeed, one’s path is never set in granite. Killing inertia is itself an early skirmish in this brutal, continual, wearisome war.

Standing with your feet firmly planted allows one to gaze out and ponder a new course; even though the road looks twisted and crooked through the brambles and brush of rural forest. Sometimes it seems too overgrown and dark to find your way. Don’t give up! Keep looking for the light, and if necessary, hack your own way out till you find the dirt road for which you yearn.

Once the new path is found and begun by faith; the energy to meet the new challenges will appear; although, this river of energy fueling a fresh endeavor is not always apparent. Sometimes you tap into its power like a hydro-electric plant, or otherwise jump in, just riding with the flow. This process isn't instantaneous. It requires patience, strength, and resiliency founded in a higher power, or should I say “outside yourself?”

Others may call the new path: too risky, or pronounce early failure. Valuable are those friends who support and encourage: every single, solitary one is an angel sent from above. Thank them when you get back on your feet. And don’t be too sure who the angels are; some of those closest to you will disappear at the moment you need them most.

All your days have prepared you for the battle now raging; take the step forward in faith and fire the first shot.

“Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next, to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish. We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.” Ephesians 2 (The Message--Copyright © Eugene H. Peterson)

“There dwells upon this earth a mysterious Being, whose office is to renew the fallen and restore the wandering… His chosen residence is a broken heart and a contrite heart.” –Charles Spurgeon

##

©Mark H. Pillsbury (2014)

 

The last will be first, and the first will be last

RE: Parables in the Bible (Matthew 20):

It has been said a parable is “an extended simile or a metaphor that explains aspects of spiritual truth in everyday terms.” The word parable describes the act of placing two objects or ideas side by side for comparison. They allow us to see ourselves in contrast to other people.

Christ’s use of parables is often commended to preachers and teachers today as an alternate way to reveal a truth; however, Jesus used parables primarily to conceal or hide His message from casual, indifferent, or unbelieving hearers. “It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given,” Christ declared (Matt. 13:11 KJV).

The Parable of the Generous Landowner and the Laborers in the Vineyard:

The parable is part of Jesus’ reply to Peter, which begins in Matthew chapter 19, verse 28. The message of the parable can be summarized in this statement: The operative principle in the kingdom of heaven is not merit but grace. 

The Apostle Paul’s words reiterate: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. …not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8–9); however, many assume that we earn God’s blessings by our works — apart from God’s grace.

The parable of the laborers in the vineyard teaches that not only our salvation, but also our entire Christian lives are to be lived on the basis of God’s grace. Also the parable teaches about two amazing qualities of grace: the abundant generosity of God’s grace, and His sovereignty in dispensing it. But its that tricky verse, what does it mean?

“The last will be first, and the first will be last”

What does that verse mean to you?

Examples:

Modern Advertising: tells us that it’s all about me and that attitude is everything.

Could it imply that some people connect right away with new information that may take others longer, depending on their relative experience? No, the slow are not to become first. The last are to become first.

Does it enforce the concept that God is the one before whom all accounts will be settled?

The workers who came later were not hired because they were lazy. They were ready to work but none would hire them. These workers were economically and socially disadvantaged. Is this parable a lesson on social/political status?

Mary said, “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones but lifted up the lowly.” (Luke 1). Many see the socio-economic ramifications of the parable. Those with low rank in the present, rise to the top in heaven.

The "day" in the parable can be seen as a typical “lifetime” of the person, if we read it chronologically. Each can be called to work for the Kingdom at any time. God is in charge of the timing of our Kingdom work.

Many believe the vineyard was an analogy for the people of Israel (see Isaiah 5 or Psalm 80). The vineyard was a symbol of Israel and its promised prosperity.  With this knowledge the message of the parable seems clearer.  The workers who come late still get to take part in the reward of the vineyard and its owner. Is Jesus communicating a radical message to the leaders and the people of Israel that says, “The Kingdom of God has been opened up to the Gentiles (called) too.”  Further, “the nation of Israel may have been first (chosen), but that doesn’t mean that others cannot receive the blessing.” Does Jesus suggest that the ones who show up later, the Gentiles, have just as prominent a place in the kingdom of God as the Jews? That would have been culturally outrageous to the Jews at the time! Jews thought dirty dogs were better than Gentiles.

Argued another way, the context implies the 12 disciples correspond to the workers hired at the beginning of the day, akin to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Those hired later correspond to other people who became Jesus’ disciples later in His ministry. The timing there is in question for the earliest and heartiest of the disciples.

What a great reversal was what Christ did on the cross:

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. (Paul quoted in Philippians). Jesus was the god-man who had to become last, so that we would be first. That is why it is called a great reversal.

Some questions for my readers:

1. Where do you see yourself in this parable of the laborers in the vineyard? What does it mean, “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” 

2. Isn’t it like an egotistical human to question who serves best? who serves most? who then gets the greatest reward?

3. What is your attitude toward the owner of the vineyard? Do you expect the Lord to do what’s right? Is this a story that makes you uncomfortable?

What two attitudes are shown here?:

Generosity—by the landowner in how he pays the laborers, and 

Jealousy—people who worked there all day and got paid the same; there is no room in the kingdom of heaven for those with either "a mercenary spirit" or "an envious spirit."

The system of law is easy to figure out: you get what you deserve!

The system of grace is foreign to us: God deals with us according to who He is, not according to who we are.

Isn’t this parable about servants. And how a servant/leader views the “day’s wage” we get for our service? Could it be all about who gets the credit?

• All our service is already due to God; it belongs to Him anyway.
• The ability to serve God is the gift of His grace.
• The call to serve God is the gift of His grace.
• Every opportunity to serve is a gift of His grace.
• Being in the right state of mind to do the Lord’s work is a gift of grace.
• Success in serving God is the gift of His grace.

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Galatians 5 AMP - IN this freedom Christ has made us free - Bible Gateway

Galatians 5 AMP - IN this freedom Christ has made us free - Bible Gateway

Using Eugene H. Peterson's The Message (NavPress), I am working through another way to look at Galatians 5: 22-26 in order to answer the question in my own way (see above link, to read what Paul says about this?):

Q: What happens when we live God's way?

A: God brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—in this case, fruit is shown in things like: affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. At the same time He also uses trials to refine us with a refiner’s fire, to bring us up as a father trains up a child so when he is older and tested, he will not depart from it.

We develop a willingness and an ability to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. I believe we learn to love justice for all human beings, because every person we deal with was created by our God in his image. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way into life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. This is a gift.

Note: Legalism (and living by works) is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities, living for ourselves, is killed off for good—crucified with Jesus on the cross. Therefore, because of Christ’s work on the cross, we are no longer struggling to be free, fighting to survive. Indeed, we are free to struggle against sin, sometimes falling victim to the devil but ultimately preserved in victory.

This life we have chosen, the new life of the Spirit or living God's way, has to be lived out on Monday through Saturday, with a practical effect on our daily lives. Our authentic walk is more than a veneer put on for Sunday at church. More than a dedication to be a “good person,” made once but not lived out.

We must be sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads, or a sentiment in our hearts; but instead work out its implications in every detail of our lives. We cannot hide anything from a sovereign God. And we must give the same grace and mercy in the context of our mistakes, as we have been given by God in the forgiveness of our sins.

As we mature as Christians, no longer can we compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original, and significant in a unique way to live the destiny that God ordained for us to live, which should give ultimate glory to the creator.
©Mark H. Pillsbury

Breathe now.

I think a lot while driving on Houston’s freeways. I don’t know why they’re called “free,” because many require tolls and the crowded chaos of these roads leads to distraction.

Driving and thinking is multi-tasking. Frequently the debris will wake you up as it flies by the windshield, or as it happened today, one gets stuck directly behind a huge bright orange trash-compacting dump-truck (Aggressive Waste Disposal/only in Houston Texas).

The smell was exquisitely rancid, putrid, and malodorously sweet! It perfectly accompanied the pounding percussion of Larry Mullen Jr. during the U2 song, “Breathe.” (see below)

Bono’s lyrics remind me that I have a love you cannot defeat. They rumbled in my head as I contemplated a meeting I just had with a young friend worried about the next step in his career. We don’t know each other very well, why would he listen to me? My mind races like loose electricity: did I make any sense, did I talk too much, not enough, how will he see that there’s nothing I have that he needs? All of us were made uniquely and must find our purpose, but ultimately “I found grace, it’s all that I found, and I can breathe. Breathe now.”

Lyrics ©U2 from No Line on the Horizon (Interscope 2009):

16th June, 9:05, door bell rings.
Man at the door says if I want to stay alive a bit longer
There's a few things I need you to know. Three!

Coming from a long line of traveling salesman on my mother's side
I wasn't gonna buy just anyone's cock-a-too;
So why would I invite a complete stranger into my home?
Would you?

These days are better than that; These days are better than that

Every day I die again, and again I'm reborn
Every day I have to find the courage
To walk out into the street, with arms out
Got a love you can't defeat
Neither down or out
There's nothing you have that I need
I can breathe. Breathe now

16th June, Chinese stocks are going up
And I'm coming down with some new Asian virus
Ju-Ju man, Ju-Ju man!

Doc says you're fine, or dying (Please?!)
9:09, St. John Divine, on the line, my pulse is fine:
But I'm running down the road like, Loose Electricity
While the band in my head plays a striptease.

The roar that lies on the other side of silence,
The forest fire is fear so deny it

Walk out into the street
Sing your heart out
The people we meet
Will not be drowned out
There's nothing you have that I need
I can breathe. Breathe now

We are people borne of sound, the songs are in our eyes
Gonna wear them like a crown.

Walk out, into the sunburst street, sing your heart out, sing my heart out
I've found grace inside a sound
I found grace, it's all that I found.
And I can breathe.
Breathe now!