“When we are dedicated to positive goals and good deeds, our obsession works in a good way, keeping us focused on accomplishing something worthwhile. When our dedication turns to negative things, it makes us miserable.” –Harold “Doc” Arnett, Fruit of the Vine

Query: Do you treat people in the ways Jesus taught?

Evening Prayer

We’ve almost forgotten

to sing the sun down:

in candle-lit vespers,

where cowled troops turn out

to sing phos hilaron,

serious and steady;

at an evening sacrifice,

near the edge of the world,

where the sea fingers in

along the tired shore;

in a grotto, off a side street,

where a deacon serves

amber confessionals

and gold penitentials;

out in a clearing,

where a campfire holds orbits,

or here at this table,

limbs folded, eyes pillowed.

Ignored in the evening,

the sun may rise dog-faced,

meat teeth lacerating the flesh

of our labor, indoors and out.

Put to bed with a song,

the sun might return

like the palm of a hand, running

rays through the waves of the wind,

soothing the backs of old fields,

jostling new feathery growth

that turns up like a fuzz

on the side of a hill.

–Jeffrey Johnson, This Will Be a Sign