One Thousand Dulux Shades of Life

found fossil skies and dove slate cloud

warm pewter rain and urban chic pavements

my life has dulled to 32 dulux shades of grey

muted mocha office and roasted coffee briefcase

dusted damson suit and muddy puddle deadlines

Joyless work in 97 dulux shades of brown

lemon drizzle smile and sunny day laughter

soft vanilla calm and wild primrose passion

I miss her in 67 dulux shades of yellow

volcanic splash anger and red stallion rage

ruby fountain sorrow and rose trellis tears

grief poured out in 164 dulux shades of red

woodland fern stillness and forest falls peace

spring meadow serenity and minted glory promise

God comforts me in 76 dulux shades of green

fragrant cloud prayer and velvet ribbon praise

lilac spring dance and cotton breeze joy

gentle restoration in 76 dulux shades of violet

harvest fruit healing and earth glaze complete

honey beam satisfied and golden rambler awake

tossed high, I soar in 65 dulux shades of gold

Author’s Note:- Dulux, retailer of paint and home improvement products, boasts of over 1,000 colours of paint

My Real Life

I am dragging words around the dance floor of the page trying to choreograph a poem. The end result is interesting. The straitjacket rules made it a challenge to write. I liked the concept of an "endangered virtue" and someone's life story written in verbs - the things that they do.

The prompt on page...no page numbers apparently - the nightmare of control freaks:-

"Write a 12 line poem whose lines begin with words that start with the letters R, V, H, O, K and E.  Use each letter twice."

My Real Life

Real life is this, I tell myself, as I

visit the corners of my soul

Here my heart beats strong but

out of sync with a world where

kindness is an endangered virtue

expressed so rarely by so few

Read my story written in active

verbs like love and sacrifice

His life before it was mine.  I am

opened petals unfolded before the Son

Known, not merely by surface and skin but with

every layer understood

There is a second part to the challenge:-

"Try it again, but this time make it rhyme."

Real life, not always calm and still, is

Visited by light and shade

Here daily beats the steadfast heart

Off centre in sin’s world unmade

Kindness breathes its healing air

Exhaled by those who ache to care

Read my story written now in

Verbs like love and sacrifice

His words so sweet I make them mine.

Oh never can the world entice

Known am I beneath my skin and

Every thought that dwells within

Living in a Good Land

“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.”  (Deuteronomy 8:7-8)

I came across this verse a few weeks ago.  I was off work with a viral infection.  There used to be a time when colds lasted three days.  On the third day I would rise from the sick bed, get dressed and go back to work.  There was always a residue – a sniffley nose, perhaps, or a bit of a gravelly voice, but I could function.  These days I seem to take a little longer to bounce back.

I remember reading this verse and thinking it was so not my experience.  I wasn’t living in a good land but a very miserable one.  Bread might have been plentiful in the bread bin, but I had no appetite to eat it.

The verse became a rallying point for my spirit and I was stirred to pray.  In prayer I claimed the good land that God intended me to possess.  I claimed fruitfulness and refreshing.  I claimed abundance in every aspect of life.  I claimed wholeness and satisfaction.  I claimed enough and more to share with others.

I might have done some claiming, but nothing really changed.  I was still ill.  I was still coughing and sneezing and mopping up mucus.  Nothing in the physical world changed, but I was convinced that something in the heavenlies had changed.  I felt that a battle had been won on some higher plain.  I might have been physically done in, but in my spirit I was a victor. 

The verse became a rallying point again today.  It was nothing to do with praying for my own needs this time, but praying for others. 

Friends and family seem not to be living in a good land right now. 

I don’t have any answers to pull them out of the mire they have sunk into.  The things that work for me, don’t always work for other people because we are wired differently.   Sometimes there is nothing that I can do to physically help.  I live too far away.

So I prayed.  On their behalf I claimed fruitfulness and refreshing for them.  I claimed abundance in every aspect of their life.  I claimed wholeness and satisfaction.  I claimed that they would experience enough and more to share with others.

I remember Martin Luther King in one of his speeches declaring that the fight has been a long one and he needs some victories.  I am feeling much like that.  The battles my friends and families are fighting are not like the three day viral infections, but seemingly endless with no light at the end of a tunnel.  They need some victories.

Lord, let them see and experience the good land you have brought them into.