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The Empty Shirt By ZPora The Empty Shirt is Full of Pain Try as you may It will not Regain Its precious Contents The Empty Shirt used to Clothe A Warm Heart full of Love One I Adored The Empty Shirt Mocks and Comforts A Silent Reminder, A Haven of rest For my bereft soul The Empty Shirt is stitched together With sacred threads, memories of my Father Who Journeyed safely home The Empty Shirt could not hold (Though it tried) the Spirit of St Elmo That now accoutres me. I stood looking out my window the other day, daydreaming about a getaway I couldn't afford. I was praying in my spirit that the Lord would make a way for me to go somewhere relaxing and rejuvenating like a Sedona Spa experience, a Kenya Safari or maybe just a little ocean view room at a Sandals island resort. Well of course all dreamy meanderings of the mind do come to an end. Reality soon reclaimed my wandering thoughts and replanted my feet firmly on the ground where I stood by the window to my front porch. Not long after my airborne thoughts had landed with a thud, I began unpacking the scene just outside my window. This is when I had a great Aha moment (aka TZPe). "How delightful and inviting my patio looks this morning." I thought to myself. I grabbed a cup of chai, my ipod, laptop and a magazine and voila I experienced one of the most beautiful moments of peace and tranquility. I had managed to carve out a niche that was quite simply a beautiful, creative space that money couldn't buy. Following that eye opening gaze out my window, I've been making time to sit out there on my very own patio and refresh my spirit daily. The lesson from my experience is that you can create joy from wherever you are. It's all about our perception of the beauty thats always within close proximity. Love and Blessings ZPora Repot & Replant Your Faith ~ Ignite Your Spirit Ever so often you listen to TD Jakes speak and many many things that he says sinks down into your spirit and ignites it. Whenever it happens you simply want to bless the Lord for giving you an ear to HEAR what He has whispered into his servant's (TD Jakes') ear which is pressed up so close to Heaven's window pane I'm surprised he's got any ears left. Anyway this past Sunday I had another such experience when I listened to Mr Jakes present the parable of The Sower. And so here a new column in Tzpora's blog has been spawned. In that message, I heard all that the Lord intended for us to HEAR and so each month I will dedicate one of my weekly posts to re sharing the TD Jakes ministry - 'TD Jakes Repotted'. ( No pun intended ). You see not everyone will HEAR in the same way and not everyone will HEAR from the same person. Picture a child who has tuned out one parent or a student who has a mental block to a particular teacher. Operating on the same principle I'm repotting what The Lord has poured into His vessel at The Potter's House and sowing it into the ground with which I'm surrounded, my family, friends, fellow bloggers, fellow humans... Of course I know, as TD said not everyone within the hearing of my voice will receive it either. For some it will roll off like water from a duck's back... oblivious! While for others, they will think, wow 'that's deep' .... But come next week...they will have forgotten.... However, the fertile spirits of this world are with whom we seek to partner and bring into the fold, The Zone. These are they who yearn and struggle... stretch and turn.... towards truth and understanding. These are they who will dance at the revelation of God's good Grace and be changed forever. And so we will build the Kingdom of God, one vessel at a time repurposed , repositioned and poised for the Harvest. Can you remember the last time you reflected on a memory you hold precious and dear. Maybe all the sights, sounds and smells of an incredible cruise to distant sun kissed shores. Memories of azure waters, lapping waves, succulent fruits, colorful birds of paradise, that sea breezy smell... come flooding back to you transporting you to a happy place. You may also recollect some not so fond memories where you get chills or shudder as memory traces embedded in your grey matter recreates an unpleasant encounter. Isn't it remarkable how our memory works. We conjure up memories by activating neurons in our brains that fire at will, making millions of connections in the blink of an eye to bring to mind encoded information. It's such a marvelous and seamlessly automated process that we never really stop to think about it, unless we experience technical difficulty with retrieval and recall. Like that time I had an epic hiccup in my synapse connectivity protocol at the grocery store. Picture this. It's rush hour on Saturday at one of those confounded self check out counters at Walmart. I am feverishly trying to checkout the babyshower gift (last minute idea) for one of the ladies in my Turkish cooking class and it's minutes before they are set to arrive at my house. Well I am beckoning and glaring at the nonchalant charlatan of a Walmart personnel who is ignoring me, while I am trying to ignore the sparks of hellfire emanating from the other desperate shoppers in my line, when my cell phone rings. It's one of the ladies trying to get directions to my house because her GPS led her astray. I begin to give her the directions while still trying to summon the sloth of a checkout monitor, jabbing at the keys on the blinking machine to get the code for the tomatoes for the stuffed eggplant recipe and bam I can't retrieve and recall the street names that lead to my house. Epic Memory fail. it was an earth shaking experience to say the least, I couldnt tell if I was having a senior moment or a TZPe moment but luckily I was able to retrieve and recall my husband's phone number which I gave to the lady so she could get clear directions from him because clearly my memory was not in an enlightened state at that moment. No synapses firing here. Anyway I disentangled myself from the death grip of that self checkout machine, fired the walmart guy a look of disdain (wasn't feeling very Christian at the moment) and left. Needless to say thankfully my brain took me home on auto pilot safe and sound without me having to even give a second thought to how I got there. That's the marvelous machine that is our Brain. How much more marvelous is our Marvelous Maker who IS the Brain behind all things and whose memory never fails when it comes to his beloved children. Oh Lord let me never forget all the way you have led me and when all else fails, remind me who I am to you. Love and Blessings Zpora .
Love and Synergy - My lover is mine and I am his.... (Songs of Solomon)
Psalm 119:35 - Make me walk among the path of your commands for that is where my happiness is. April is National Poetry month, at which time I must pause por ponder on how our lives have been enriched by the power of the spoken and written word. Poetry is a good place to work out your salvation and to deconstruct your 'trouble'. The following quote is poetry explained like only a poet can, by Tracy W. Smith, the winner of the 2012 Pulitzer prize for her book of poems, Life on Mars. She says, "For me a poem is an opportunity to kind of interrogate myself a little bit and see what ways I'm complicated by situations or even... I don't know... like somehow connected to in ways that might be uncomfortable. " Here, Smith also alludes to poetry as a platform for demystifying difficult discourses. My love and appreciation for the creative arts is surpassed only by my love for the Master Creator, our awesome God. My love affair with men and women who had their way with words begins with my grandfather Ivan (my mom's stories of his wit and sarcasm made me yearn to have sat at his feet). Then there was my high school English Literature teacher who we affectionately called Aunt Beryl. It was she who whet my appetite for the rhythm and rhyme of the written word, encouraged me to lend an attentive ear to Shakespeare, and who nurtured my impulse to dabble in the writer's inkpot. Then on my own I discovered Maya Angelou. I found myself longing for the opportunity to sit at her hearthstone and listen to her heart speak just so her gift of words would somehow seep surreptitiously into my bones. In college I stumbled upon Zora Hurston from whom I've often and unabashedly so, stolen the phrase, "I've been in sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the kitchen pots" in my attempts to put a name to pain. And then like an unfaithful lover, I might then turn and seek comfort in the arms of Kahlil Gibran's truth. When you wrestle with the idea of death and dying of a loved one and your hurt collides with Gibran"s enlightened soliloquys one cannot help but find solace and renewal of spirit. Gibran writes; "Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance" At other times when I seek to interpret and interrogate social injustice issues of hunger, genocide and poverty, I resort to the words of the brilliant, Ben Okri. In his poem, An African Elegy, he writes about the audacity of hope amidst pain and struggle: We are the miracles that God made To taste the bitter fruit of Time. We are precious. And one day our suffering Will turn into the wonders of the earth. Life's meanderings inevitably leads to the subject of Love. At such a juncture one must for a time make acquaintances with the mistress who so masterfully orchestrates the ode to love's seedier side. Enter stage left, Ms. Elizabeth Smart who weeps for her lover by Grand Central Station, ere joining the ranks of the children of Israel who wept by the rivers of the Babylon when they remembered Zion. Though the theological debate rages, much of the Bible IS a study in prose and poetry. The lyrical expressions of joy, sorrow, praise and penitence of David; the mournful dirges of lamentations; the Love Songs of Solomon which accurately suggests that, "many waters cannot quench love nor can the floods drown it" Then there are those awesome literary exchanges between Job and God. One must remember that God is aka, The Word so Job could not really compete in that poetry slam. Here's a snippet of their conversations. God speaking: "Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?" Job 38 No wonder His son Jesus also had a way with words and loved to speak in Parables (spiritual truths embedded in earthly prose). Jesus' communication style helps us to stretch our thinking and consider His message of Salvation. In the following parable He reminds us to shine for his Glory in the Parable of the lamp under a bushel (Matthew 5:14- 16 NIV) You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. So even as we celebrate a Month of Poetry let's gather and reason about the Master Poet for all the seasons of our lives let our christian fire burn brightly A reflection of His great Glory. Love and Blessings Zpora
A Shared Meal is a good opportunity to share the Good News Last weekend I got together with some friends for a cooking class. It got me thinking about how much food has the potential to unify us across places, religion and cultures. When we sit at a table and break bread together there is something rather disarming about that shared meal. As we chopped, stirred and mixed, we talked and laughed in the same language even though we were from different religions and from far flung corners of the globe - From as far as Peru in the South to Honduras, Caribbean islands, USA , as far North as Canada and as far East as Turkey and Uzbekistan - a global melting pot so to speak. We drank chai together after our meal and as the conversation swirled around me, my mind drifted to a quote by Greg Mortensen, author of the book, Three Cups of Tea - "First cup of tea, you're a stranger, Second cup, a friend, by the third you're family. And as I write this I'm reminded of Easter and our Lord's Last Supper " While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” 27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” I am looking forward to dining with my Savior, my Lord and friend at that sumptuous meal in His kingdom where we will all partake as one big family of God. I can hardly imagine how much fun it will be.... Love ZPora Thank You Father
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