prayer poem

Candlelight

Lord, you love me

as I am. I rest in

your gigantic hand,

trusting you have knit

my ways, measured

out my given days.

Let your goodness

overflow, flooding all

I hope to know

and may your grace

bleed o’er my heart, though

I don’t know the pathway

and can’t find the start.

I’m planning to step,

but it might be to fall.

Lord, you have made

me. I trust. That is all.

©2016 Kimberly Laustsen

snatching heaven

What is the purpose of a blog? For months, I have been struggling to decide the fate of this blog. Who knows? I have decided to embrace uncertainty and to continue posting when I can snatch the time, without holding myself to any deadlines. In this life, beauty and mystery are often paired.

A few weeks ago, I went to the Texas hill country for four days with my amazing tribe of photography ladies. Five strong, we have dubbed ourselves "The Shuttertrippers." A few days before our trip, I was in Pennsylvania, saying goodbye to an angel named Connie: a dear lady who came to live with my sisters, mom, and me when I was two. Connie helped to raise my sisters and me, living with us for ten years: cooking all of our meals, holding down the fort, and keeping us sane. All three sisters were there as Connie drew her last breath. We will miss her. To say the least.

Along a random country road on the photography trip, shuttertripper Laura spied an old house with a porch leading into a field of bluebonnets. Brakes squealed and tires skidded as Laura shouted, "Yeeeoooowwwzzzzaaaaa... ssssttooooooop!"

How like heaven, I thought, emerging from the car, camera in hand. I could not tear myself away from the scene above and stayed there the duration of our stop, snapping shot after shot as if trying to capture a shadow. In my mind's eye, Connie was wandering among the flowers as she stepped into eternity only days before. When I get to heaven, there will be bluebonnets. And so many faces to see.

celebrate National Poetry Month

I've been away a while. I took a breather to do many home projects and editing jobs. All the while, I have been continuing to write poems. My favorite kind to write these days are listing poems. Something about making a list of word is so calming, so satisfying. Like a prayer, words trip from my brain and drip onto the page clearing room for new thoughts. Seems its the same way with feelings. In order to make room for happy thoughts, I must release negative feelings, no matter how justified they seem. I must let go and allow myself to fall into the peace of being, into God's loving hands. Letting go of anything is hard. Guess that's why it has taken me two full years to unclutter my house. Meditation helps with this. So does the habit of listing three things to be grateful for at the end of each day. The older I get, the more I apprehend the fluidity of life, which is frightening and exciting at the same time.

Enjoy this special National Poetry Month! Challenge yourself to write a poem each day, if only a listing poem of random words from your brain to see what happens, to see what space those words open up or what thoughts they jostle loose. Enjoy!

Circuitry

Simple
and
light,
buoyant
and
tight,
free,
breezy,
gazing
about,
hum,
sing,
jiggle,
and
shout.
       -2015Kimberly Laustsen

happiness

Happiness = flowers. I mean that. Flowers are so intriguing to me, so completely lovely, that I cannot fully understand what about them makes me feel such joy. I can't get enough. I want to climb inside  a flower, any flower, and lounge there for a year or so to fully comprehend its majesty. 

Look how many distinct flowers God chose to create. That simple fact says more about him, more about his mercies, than I can wrap my brain around. How mysterious. How perfectly beautiful.

crazy for the girl

I love beauty. I am dedicated to my blog. That said, sometimes one needs to refuel and refill. This is my excuse for the dearth of posts these past few months. This summer, QG and I went on a vacation with daughter number two Kelly and her boyfriend David, traveling throughout Boston, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Amazing. Blissful. Delightful. Every moment of our trip was golden.

Have I mentioned we had a good time? We even got to spend a night in the home of  my college roommate, Margie, and her family. Perfect. Love that girl. Margie is a national treasure: a beautiful person who came into my life at a critical time when I was eighteen and completely clueless. Margie gave me the idea that good grades could be a worthwhile goal. Crazy, but before this amazing sweetie (aka, Margie) came into my life, I thought that "C" grades were perfectly acceptable. But Margie was all about getting straight "A's." Makes sense, considering she is now a college professor. Up to when I met Margie, I had not been exposed to much except the hairdressers at my mom's small-town beauty shop, where I'd worked since seventh grade, the fast-food workers at Wendy's, where I also worked, and my family: folks who regarded a "C" grade as just fine, no questions asked. Not that there is anything wrong with a "C" if it reflects your best work. In high school, too disengaged to care, I slid by with whatever grades I could get with with no effort.  Enter Marjorie, who rocked my world with her kick-a_ _ 4.0 and her curious habit of always doing her best.

Whaaat? I thought. Straight "A's?" I had not, heretofore, considered such a thing. But this crazy, lovable girl, who I lived with starting half-way through my freshman year at Penn State University, got all A's and, by gum, considering that she could do it and, moreover, seemed to thrive on the excitement of learning, I suddenly and radically decided that I could, too. And I did. More or less. Nobody's perfect. Margie changed my life. Plain and simple. She introduced me to a new way of thinking. Besides that, she was funny. We laughed a lot. She washed all my laundry once when I ran out of clean clothes. She sang and played Dan Fogelberg tunes on her guitar. How cool. I am still thankful. Life is a journey. I would be nothing without the people I have met, and come to cherish and learn from, along the way. Like my adorable college roomie, Margie.

button flowers

I find it so inspiring to watch other people create beautiful things. 

Such endeavors strike me as almost spiritual, like perceiving something beyond what can be seen and bringing it into being for others to appreciate. 

How wonderful that, in this life, we always have the options to create and to learn. 

My friend, Lydia, makes flowers out of old buttons, giving new life to these castoffs in magical pairings of perfect bits joined together to make art that I could look at all day. 

She was nice enough to let me borrow her stash to photograph. Love these.

thankful

Today I'm thankful for many things,
like flowers from my neighbor Tammilynne:
a dear, dear friend of seventeen years,
a cohort through many trials and fears.

Life's surprising and one
never knows what will die and what will grow.
The flowers here were volunteers
sprung from a crop that grew and died,
leaving buried seeds behind.

Actions always lead to ends, though
tempted otherwise, don't pretend. Decide
what to stand for, who to love, what to speak out
and what to leave, unsaid, for God above.