a prophetic voice-

If I were in charge of the weather, I would create a whole spate of days like today- temperatures in the upper seventies, low humidity, lots of sun and just enough breeze to elicit a gentle melody from the windchimes on my front porch. Which is where is I have been spending most of today with my trusty laptop, researching material for the next three sermons I will be preaching...eating a bit of lunch...listening to the birds whose songs are occasionally punctuated by the voices of kids passing by on the street. And now comes the refrain of the ice cream truck, making its way slowly down Council Street. Just a perfect day.    Good job, God...not that you need my consent or assent or approval, but I am just incredibly appreciative for a day like this...a day on which I can forget about hip pain and grief pain and anything sad, and be simply overwhelmed and engulfed by the beauty and wonder and perfection surrounding and enfolding me.  ...

Despair has a seductively enticing voice      as it whispers its lies  drawing the aching soul into its  velvet tentacles of promised rest                                    release from pain                                    nevermore hiding its hideous face behind     a veil of virgin delights                    paradise lost and regained all the while cackling with a witch's horrid laugh only the damned can hear

Good morning, dear ones. The sun is shining brightly on this Holy Monday, even as so many here in Carolina are digging out from the worst spate of deadly tornados this state has seen since 1984. Over 20 dead...and property destroyed in scenes which resemble a war zone or the pictures we have been seeing of the earthquake's devastation in Japan. More than 60 tornados were reported across our state on Saturday, hopscotching in a haphazard fashion across the capitol city, Raleigh, and many rural hamlets, destroying a Lowe's Home Improvement store in Sanford and then moving willy-nilly through residential neighborhoods, flattening one house while leaving its neighbor untouched. Official tallies include more than 130 serious injuries, 65 homes destroyed, and another 600 damaged significantly, while many major roadways remain blocked by downed trees. And those of us in the Christian community are venturing into the week we call "Holy" because it is the time we commemora...