about

I scribble to live and live to scribble. I am a freelance writer, but I try not to be too seriously serious about my scratchings or myself.

Most of the world sees in prose, but my life lenses focus in poetry. It is the distillation of language and intoxicating to ingest.  When I am not drinking it in, I make some feeble attempts at coughing it up.

Mark Strand, Billy Collins, and Ted Kooser have definitely gotten my rapt attention. Even Emily Dickinson in her grave has to give an approving nod to the likes of these modern poets. Pure inspiration! Poetry is a world that I tiptoe into and must  pull myself away from. Like honey, too much will make you sick or crazy.

My husband and I have one daughter who loves to laugh and keeps us young. We travel internationally extensively where we find kindred and passionate hearts, delectable cuisine, beautiful oceans, mountains, and terrain, and that four- and five-star hotels abroad translate to minus four. Now that is my pampered American side speaking.

We did live abroad as educators and humanitarian aid workers for seven years and in some of the most humble settings. God graced us everyday with joy and contentment. What charges our lives is content–to give ourselves to something or someone bigger than we are. With content, we can be contented anywhere.

About this blog:

You will find slices of life from around the world here through prose, poetry, and photographs…most of the pictures are mine unless otherwise stated.

The Jewish Messiah — Yeshua in Hebrew and Jesus in English — Redeemer of all humankind, tears away the veil of blindness that keeps we who contemplate in the dark the existence of God. Everyone does. Everyone has.

When we see Yeshua or Jesus, we see that indeed He does exist. He is the very representation of God on earth. There is no one else.

He is the Light of World that shone from tiny Bethlehem and His light is still shining today through those who believe in Him and carry on His life and works on this world. We become His light to those who seek truth.

Isaiah writes:

Arise, shine: for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. . The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the shall the moon give light to you by night; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended (Isaiah 60: 1-3, 19-20).

The seeds of light that were first sown in the dark streets of Bethlehem reap a harvest of glory on a cross that stood on Golgotha outside the gates of Jerusalem. The piercing of his human body, the bruises, the blood and water that flowed from his wounded side ignited a burning torch for the world. And the glory of that cross becomes evident in the miracle of His resurrection. The splendor of that light is blinding as the sun at noonday. We can only barely squint at it, absorbing small amounts of his glory. Who among us can gaze with eyes wide open at the splendour and light of Messiah?

Those who sit in the darkness of human reasoning remain blind.

Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ has the power of God and wisdom of God (I Corinthians 1:21).

It is the true light that came from above—the image of God in human form—as a babe, as a Lamb who offered his own blood and life as the Lamb of God, as the resurrected Messiah, who will return in the clouds of glory.

Just as the menorah in the Jewish temples of Moses and Solomon displayed light from a hammered gold stand according to the specification of the LORD and shone perpetually, so we who carry the light of the LORD shine His truth from earthen vessels of human frailty. We are hammered or molded into His image that His heavenly light will illuminate His perfection and purity.

This is the construction of the menorah: hammered gold,b from its base to its bowls* it was hammered; according to the pattern which the LORD had shown Moses, so he made the menorah (Numbers 8:4).

The days of my life are numbered accordingly as they have been pre-written in the Book of Life. And I am “hammered” by His hands of love into His imagine. Often a painful transformation. I yield as He yielded in the garden, alone.