wprice – Page 2 – Unjournaled

20Oct 2017 by wprice No Comments

Psalm 141

Reflections

Sometimes I sit in The Church of Nothingood and let the choir soak my spirit in terrible lies. It's a splendid mess of modern dissonant, voices - sent to tell me how to breathe and live out loud. But I have a friend with a firm hand, who wounds me when I won't leave and loves me more than the people on the program - still singing false. Psalm 141

19Oct 2017 by wprice No Comments

Psalm 140

Reflections

Whose jobs are they coming for anyway? I was under the impression that jobs (good and bad) came from the Provider. You think they're the pestilential ones? What if "the wicked" were closer to home? What if you found them on your speed-dial, on your Sunday School roster or voting record? Or what if you were wicked, unwittingly but complicit still in God's least favorite injustices - the dreadful things that rile his soul with rage and send his feet to the tribunal? The only rescue is the Righteous One who is enthroned to out-grace us all. Though He is also enthroned for justice, which overturns, providing glory. Psalm 140

18Oct 2017 by wprice No Comments

Psalm 139

Reflections

It can be terrifying, when someone knows what you're thinking. A judging look casts shadows on your conscientious, sunbathed emotions: unspoken, sheer in the unwanted backlighting. But there is a grace that fills when it finds character bankrupt. Psalm 139

17Oct 2017 by wprice No Comments

Psalm 138

Reflections

I am not lowly when I leverage privilege to shout or whine at the tax rate on my shiny, selfish things. I am not lowly when I bemoan loss of newness or bristle at friends when they succeed where I have failed. God still sees me, but graciously invites me down. Psalm 138

16Oct 2017 by wprice No Comments

Psalm 137

Reflections

The guilty party goes unpunished, and it feels like justice is an arcade token, limited by trade and arrangement: "Win or lose, but don't expect power." But maybe Power waits for the fruit of repentance to grow in powerfully cold hearts. Psalm 137

13Oct 2017 by wprice No Comments

Psalm 136

Reflections

As I take delight in history I'm so often the ignorant page - marked by happenings but never moved. What if I should be upturned instead of delivered? What if I should be torn down to be built into a mold that resembles nothing of my plans, nothing of my dreams of victory, nothing but a beaten Nazarene. Psalm 136

12Oct 2017 by wprice No Comments

Psalm 135

illustrations, Reflections

If God delights in me, even a little, why shouldn't I delight in grace more than in self-congratulation? What if God's little delight is infinite? Shouldn't grace best me? ... But I wander to the snow fields of self-care and wallow in the cold ice-blanket alone. I will delight in me. I will satisfy grief and the longing for oneness and justice. But grace stands above me, a distant, present mass of glorious flame that warms regardless of my bitter self-love. The gravity draws like a salt cure and leads me to the threshold. I hear singing... Psalm 135

11Oct 2017 by wprice No Comments

Psalm 134

Reflections

Toiling in the mundane seems far from blessedness, but keeping your post, or not leaving it to chance, persists an incarnation of God's hope on site. Psalm 134

10Oct 2017 by wprice No Comments

Psalm 133

Reflections

If unity means that we think the same thing, then unity is a lost coin in the leaves. But if it means that we share the selfsame heart, then unity is the clean air after rain. Psalm 133

05Oct 2017 by wprice No Comments

The Bright Blue Room

Everyday

I don't remember the sky without those man-made clouds - those airplane slug trails that lead from concentration to dissipated sky dander. But I remember the water. Creeks and runoffs slither and coil in my mind's three-ring scrapbook — that oily film that glittered on the standing water - that eerie foam near the rapids. I can feel the rough sandbanks on my toes and the lurking fear of the cottonmouth nearby. The road noise moves him, and the slap of his body on the green-brown shallows snaps me out of myself. And I run like hell all the way to my bright blue bedroom in that pink brick ranch and shiver with life.

Author: wprice