Shelter

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,…

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….

Elk Crossing the Lake

Sunrise broke a couple of large marble pots leaning against the walls of heaven and sky. Did you know that the colors of dawn and dusk are stored in these magnificent stone jars? They stand waiting in the wings of aurora and twilight, ready to be broken open and slathered across the horizon.  Freshly released,…

Connection

Sheltered between two Rocky Mountain canyon walls, my husband and I ascend the steep hair-pinned road. A deep sense of belonging settles as we view the beauty in silence. We have left the city behind in hopes of the serenity of clear blue mountain lakes, pristine heights and slopes of evergreens and aspen, and most…

Fall 2021

September morning breezes whisper the unrooting of summer’s green carpets and blossomed meadows in anticipation of the changeless mystery of autumn and the foretelling winter’s barren bone. While down below ancient earth produces again the necessary spools and spools of burnished color to unravel, with giddy delight, across the mountains, hills, and plains. The opened…

Ten Things that Rock My Life

I take pleasure in many things in life, not just ten. Sometimes I wish to divide myself into multiples so I can enjoy more opportunities to learn and grow. Here is just the cream off the top of things that rock my life. Music: I took piano lessons for a number of years as a…

I Stopped the Movie and Wept

We have had a couple of gray and bone-chilly days here by the sea. I don’t mind. The ocean is a different place when the weather is foul. It is still awesome and captivating, but somehow a rolling amount of immeasurable water with fathomless power is scarier and more on-the-edge of civilized life when the…

The Untangler

I wish I had a dollar for every necklace my husband has untangled for me over the last 27 years. Even though his hands are much larger than mine, somehow he has the skill and most of all the patience to untangle the knotted links of any tiny chain. Little by little he unravels, untwists,…