Posts by John Blase

Sometimes loving God is hard. Not our man-ufactured ideas of God but God the Actual. The God who disappears for months then shows up as if it were no biggie, relax. The God who the psalmist describes as a moth that eats away all that is dear to us. The God who, let’s face it, …

Your eyes are tired, telling you you’ve looked at the wrong words too long. These words are not wrong for others but they are for you, always have been. Yet you had to apprentice yourself to them for years and seasons in order to learn to hate them for their barrenness. This was the only…

The way dew clings to grass can capture my attention for a spell. Or maybe its the way grass clings to dew that has me so fascinated. Either way you cut it is a wonder in a way the new Apple Watch isn’t.  Maybe that’s because I’m getting older, or better. Either way I find…

Most commentators insist that when the beloved disciple leaned back into Jesus’ bosom he heard the heartbeat of God. Or possibly the pulse of compassion. Or something similarly soothing to our senses. This is yet another example of the mistake the commentator mind makes, trying to think beyond what it knows. John’s proximity gave him…

Is it true? That the only happy men are wounded men?   This thought rose while multi-tasking (scrambling eggs for my daughter and listening to Roger Whittaker).   Yes. I believe that is true. But while tempting to qualify the wounds – as in only those received in love’s service – such poetic filters can…

time begins to hemorrhage. Efforts to slow its flow are vain. Go ahead and try so you can say I tried. But I’ll say I told you so. Whatever you thought life close to fifty would look like, it doesn’t. You find yourself sifting among the ruins searching for clues as to what you’ve been…

I was born beneath a sentimental star always looking over my shoulders not forgetting what lies behind (so sorry, St. Paul). Strange speech often erupts from my lips like I gotta see a man about a horse     or That’s a fine how do you do. Generally people at parties find this charming at…

I thought the moment I was most proud of yesterday  was stopping to watch two early bird sparrows gather twigs from beside the wooden gate and fly them up to our sleeping neighbor’s gutter. And it was at first.   But then that moment was overthrown by another later in my day, the time when…

He would sit on his porch on mild evenings and always Sing the same song. His was a voice rasped by a lifetime of Marlboros   But there was something about hearing Red River Valley After the madness of the day that eased me, like church used to when I was a boy.   So…

     Don’t you miss the world? This was the question that Swirled inside the sepulcher Rushing into his dead ears Pumping against the ridges of his cold brain Like a paramedic performing CPR Insistent, asking, over and over again.      Don’t you miss the world? This was the question that Swore not to yield until…