She moves with stealth behind the scenes of autumn, steadily edging toward the razor cold and lacy veil of ice and crystal. Then quietly she falls, winter’s glorious mystique reveals in a day. In layers, it descends and deeper it penetrates, much more than surface. The chill and snow seeps below. But not to spurn. It’s the season of fireside reflections,…
Tag: hope
Across the Kitchen Table
I turn 75 tomorrow. I don’t feel old or irrelevant, although my culture may tell me otherwise. Older, more savvy friends and pastoral mentors shared with Wayne and me in our early 40’s that life doesn’t even get really fun and rich until your fifties. That was a bit of experiential advice that I put…
A Road Map to Joy
A ROAD MAP TO JOYPoems and StoriesFind Your Way in a World of Discontent Step into a world where faith and poetry intertwine—where the flicker of hope leads you down a path toward lasting joy. In “A Road Map to Joy,” Bonnie Saul Wilks gathers luminous poems and reflective stories that capture the ache and…
Terror and Beauty
I pause with reverence on the balcony of my hotel room in the Holy City. Across from me stands the New Gate, and my eyes follow Jerusalem’s ancient walls as far as I can see. The golden Dome of the Rock faintly gleams as dawn peaks its way up and over the horizon and walls….
This Will Break Charlie’s Heart
I recently read of Charlie Kirk that, while the nation mourns his death, we must never forget his rhetoric–which did not exemplify the gospel of Jesus or the way of the cross. That Kirk was ultimately a brilliant MAGA apologist and right wing conservative provocateur. A myriad of analysts, opposed to his views, have accused…
Betrayal
Don’t think of betrayal, rejection, disappointment, or failure as deprivation, rather a nutrient-rich, bitter bite. Trees are pruned in slices, without ruth, to the life-giving quick of a bearing branch. The inward, blue stripes of brokenness–that rite of passage called surrender–produces the most impassioned, sweetest, and lasting fruit. You will rise again to re-plow, re-seed,…
Words and the Sea
The sea is awake and the sand asleep. Waves wash over the uncombed glittering grains with generosity. Over and over they move in tandem, in rhythm—the washing in and out of great salty waters. My heart stings as the saline potion washes clean the wounds of yesterday. Collapsed and cradled in the arms of the…
Soar
Ponder living in the world of a bald eagle, king of the skies, plummeting from the mountain top to the glassy clear blue lake and rising again. Oh the invigorating rush of life, exhilaration, boundless freedom, and ineffable joy! Have you been born without wings? Think again. Bend life’s harsh limitations into a dream beyond…
The Whisper of Faith
“Therefore God does not confront faith with trivial things but with such things as all the world cannot bear, like death, sin, the world, and the devil. For all the world is not able to stand up against death but flees from it, is frightened by it, and is overpowered by it. But faith stands…
The Lily
The lesser and greater lights, and all living things thrive, cradled in your robes. But not I. Hidden in the pierced place of the palm of Your hands, my soul takes rest and my spirit sparks upward into everlasting love. How can I keep saying thank you as the lily? Her sun-scrubbed face upturned into…
Bonnie Saul Wilks 