Poems, Reflections, & Other Favorite Tippe Musings

Poems, Reflections, and Other Favorite Tippe Musings

An assortment of writings…
some home grown and some from poets and writers whose work inspires us to be
all we can be….within God’s embrace. In-Joy!

Follow My Footsteps

Don’t say you understand my pain when you haven’t walked in my shoes.
I’ve gone through a lot of pain that I didn’t want to choose.

I was hurt, broken like a glass being thrown at the wall.
Shattering into tiny pieces until I was nothing at all.

I was glued back together so many times
I’m surprised people saw me the same in their eyes.

I changed a lot and nobody knew
Because I hid behind a wall that I put between me and you.

I didn’t want others to worry.
My problems were my own.
Sad to say it pushed me down into hell where I lived for so long.

I’ve tried to climb out of the burning pit
But it seemed every time I tried I’d become sick.

Pushing everything away, I blocked those I loved.
Hiding in the dark where I can fight my problems alone.

No moves seemed to work even though I thought it did.
Every time I knocked them down they’d pull me along like a kid.

Giving up was my only option and the dark swallowed me whole.
My sickness grew stronger and people started to notice.

I tried harder to hide the cracks that were put back together.
But it was revealed and I felt like I was a goner.

I broke into pieces once again Given the help I should have been put in.

I was fixed and cleaned up.
Looking like someone new.

My pain disappeared and my cracks healed
But sad to know my heart isn’t pure.

Don’t say you know my problems when you haven’t walked in my shoes.

Follow my footsteps

And you’ll see my trail of tears.

Carrie Stewart, 2014

God Speaks to Each of Us

God speaks to each of us before we are,
Before he's formed us — then, in cloudy speech,
But only then, he speaks these words to each
And silently walks with us from the dark:

Driven by your senses, dare
To the edge of longing. Grow
Like a fire's shadowcasting glare
Behind assembled things, so you can spread
Their shapes on me as clothes.
Don't leave me bare.

Let it all happen to you: beauty and dread.
Simply go — no feeling is too much -
And only this way can we stay in touch.

Near here is the land
That they call Life.
You'll know when you arrive
By how real it is.
Give me your hand.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Healing
Is a state of mind
As much as a state of being…
Being
free
Being open
To see,
Living each
day
Abundantly.

Pastor Karen Hagen, 2009

When I lose my way…
When I get confused…
When my resolve falters,
Or my
insights fade…
I look to the sky, to the stars.

I listen to the trees, to the wind.
I taste my blessings and
I hear the oldest voices.
Then I make my way.

Then I fuse with deeper self.
Then I solve simpler puzzles

And look out, see the what seems so far away.
See it. Be it.
Me….it.

Pastor Karen Hagen, 2006

Remember I Taught You

I’ve poured all I have in you
To teach you always to be true

To treat each other, with respect
To know every act, has an effect

To always choose, to lend a hand
And morally, to take a stand

To lean on God, for everything
To feel the peace, I know he’ll bring

I try to teach you, how to live
Not to take, but always give

To smile at the ones who don’t
And include them when others won’t

To pay attention, think things through
To remember what I’ve said to you

To never think you’re better than
To set high goals, and know you can

To use kind words, with everyone
To smile, laugh and have some fun

To never let someone, change who you are
To make a wish, on every star

To keep your word, do what you say
Make a point, to pray everyday

To always dream, your biggest dream
And when you marry, be a team

To know the laws, and always obey
Unless the bible, says another way

To make a difference for at least one
To face your fears and never run

To try your best at all you do
To make your Mommy proud of you

To pass it on to your own some day
& remind them to, pass on this way.

Teresa Bergemann, 2003

Love After Love

The time will come when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you have ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott, Collected Poems 1948-1984,
New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986.

When I sing, Abba, I can feel you in my heart.
When I dance, Abba, we are not far apart.
When I paint, Abba, I am you not me.
When I pray, Abba, we are one completely free.

- Pastor Karen Hagen, 2008

The Path

When you have followed the map
which is not a map and
created the path with every step,
you will traverse the in-ferno,
meet the dragons and find them tame.

You will bathe in
the pool of the past and empty it.
You will cross the desert and fall
in love with the life teeming there.

And you will emerge where
the luminous world swoons at your feet,
seeking what only you can give.

Antoinette Voute Roeder, Still Breathing, 2010
Apocryphile Press, Berkeley, CA

Is it a Place or a Space?

Where
is ‘place’within the spaces we live and see? Walls, streets, buildings
give us place. Sky, fields, and open water offer vastness of space. Are ‘space’ and ‘place’ the same? I think not. Space is vague, inclusive, and universal.
Place is named, determined, recognized. Space holds dreams. Place holds memories.

Space allows breath and breathing. It awakens the imagination and creativity. It
invites the deepest part of us to trust and explore. It begs for nothing. It is
the absence of ‘what might be’ that gives it freedom. It has no demands. Space
is uncommitted, unnamed, without story and specific memory.

Place is very different. Place offers suggestions by its very nature.
Place defines as it becomes a sounding board for the many memories it
may invoke.
Places hold and invite stories. While aplace may be silent, the story that is recalled will be full of sound and movement, color
and dynamic.
Places remember a relationship, moods and
feelings.

Not too long ago I invited my Facebook friends to share familiar phrases with the
word ‘place’. Listen for the clarity in direction and purpose. Hear the stories they hold. What memories come to mind?

Your place or mine?
A place for everything and everything in its
place
Are you in the right place?
Between a rock and a hard place
What’s taking place?
A place at the table
Peyton Place
Place your bets
Placeholder
Place of worship
It's not your place.
No-place; Some-place
There's a place for us, somewhere a place for us. - West Side Story
Right-place; Wrong-place
We’ve got to get out of this place!
Put the placemats on the table near the
fireplace.
I can't quite place the face.
Place your hands on your head and step away from the car.
What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?
Ah, but that was in another place and time."
Placesetting of silverware
She put me in my place!
A place in the sun
A place of my own
Place-based training
They'll never place me at the scene of the crime!
I landed in 1st place.
No place like home
I'll go in your place
I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him. - Abraham Lincoln

And now . . . what PLACE phrase comes to your mind?

Susan Eaton Mendenhall
www.jazzart.biz
www.spatialimpact.com
http://storiesofplace.blogspot.com/

What is a flower but light and grace and subtleness?
What is a raindrop but freedom, release, and renewal?
What is the night air but rest and calm and hope?
What is love but a raindrop resting on flower held within the depth of this night’s air?

Pastor Karen Hagen, 2005

Everything on the way to heaven is heaven:
“Every Second Holy Held”
Life is about seconds.
On one side of a second….laughter.
On the other, tears.
On one side of a second….trust
On the other, fears.
On one side of a second….calm
On one side….life’s routine balm
On the other, shame.
On the other, pain.
On one side of a second.…together
On the other, no more and never.
One second…one side of a second….one second…

But I know, don’t you know? …every second…
Both sides holy held as one,
no matter what is to come.

Leaning, leaning
back into the really real,
The Divine’s
everlasting embrace I feel.

Both sides of a second,
not either/or…
Both sides of a second,
held evermore.

Pastor Karen Hagen, 2005