Faith – Jane Tawel

Parables: The Stories of Small, Lost Things

Parables: The Stories of Small, Lost Things

By Jane Tawel

September 10, 2026

Parables are stories that are meant to withstand: outliving culture, time, space, and author. For this reason, parables, such as the brilliant and beautiful parables of Jesus, have been wrongly cluttered with solidifying interpretations, both those interpretative prison bars we put around so many of the Scriptures themselves, added on by the authors and not Jesus, and also those constricting structures added to ancient words today by preachers, priests, and common folk (such as I). Parables must be flexible enough to bend to new times and places and thereby relate something about our human experience no matter where or who we are. And perhaps parables, for those of us on the Eternal Search, show us something just out of reach about what God is like as well. Parables are always meant to be just out of our reach, like that pesky gnat that keeps flying around your face that you just can not swat away for the life of you. And parables are for “the life of you”. The best parables of the Wise Ones, should irritate us like the gnat. They should also, however, touch some place deep inside of us, beyond our little and much over-rated minds. I love a well-defined philosophy and I adore poetic expression, but my soul is touched by the paradoxes and deep-well water of a parable. Like all great stories, parables push me beyond belief and into experience; and to live inside of the experience of being human with the Mystery of what is not human — call it God, if you like — is too often cast aside in the quest for some idolatry, some offering of false assurance or some ever-dissatisfying temporal pleasure.

I will simply copy and paste below three parables attributed to Jesus by someone who we know today as Luke. What I am wrestling with (as one must do with parables) is how these three parables together can effect me today — how I can let them effect me. And yes, I refuse to use the modern word “affect” — there is far too much “affection” in the world as it is: I want the “Cause” of these parables to have an “Effect” in my heart, soul, mind and actions. For this is the truest Truth I know: we humans are created to “Love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength” and to love our neighbor with all our “heart, soul, mind and strength”, and to love myself with all my “heart, soul, mind and actions”. This is what I want to find in these three stories of lost things. Because I see so much loss in my world today. We have lost the belief, the driving force that one single human being is infinitely important. If you interpret as many do, that one of the characters in these parables is maybe, kinda, sorta God or Jesus, then, you would be interpreting God and Jesus as willing to completely ignore all the rest of the sheep, and all the rest of the coins to search for or celebrate the return of the one lost dumb, and the stupid sheep, the one lost insignificant, can’t buy much coin. You would also have to accept that God doesn’t punish the returning lost son, the useless, horrible, no good very bad, child, but instead throws a big party. God searching for a little, insignificant person out of the billions of humans walking the planet today is pretty unbelievable. This is frankly a very, very stupid thing to do. Compare it to one of our current billionaires ignoring his stock portfolio to go search for the quarter he dropped on the sidewalk. Compare it to a ruler ignoring all the CEOs and religious and political leaders in his party to throw a banquet for the homeless. (Jesus has a good parable about that too, but I digress). So, if you are going to want to see the “Searchers” or the “Father” in these parables as God, then you would have to admit that God doesn’t actually care what you have done or not done or where you worship or who you love: God loves each person, unconditionally, absolutely, and longingly. In his famous “Sermon on the Hilltop”, Jesus puts it like this: “The rain falls on the good and evil, on the just and the unjust”. Eeessh. Sometimes I wanna say to Jesus when I see him, “you gotta be jokin’?!” I mean, seriously, this puts into question my whole idea about fairness. Which is what so many of Jesus’ parables do, including the three lost things parables.

And here is the thing that a lot of Scripture-readers maybe don’t want to see but that I learned from the brilliant Jewish writer, Amy-Jill Levine, in her book Short Stories by Jesus. In the last of Luke’s parables about lost things, the father does NOT go searching for the lost prodigal. Yes, the prodigal returns and the father celebrates him, as any parent is so very happy to do when a child becomes safe after a dangerous choice, but the father does not go out looking for the younger, so-called prodigal son in this story. The Father DOES go search for the older son, the “good” son. This son has been so misinterpreted by our need to pin down the parable’s meaning for our own beliefs or time and place. But the story ends, like the other two, with the human being going to search for the one lost thing, even while everyone else is partying and having a good time with the returned son. The father does not realize until later that the older son, the one who has, in his own words, “done everything right”, is missing. And the father goes to find him. The shepherd with a lot of sheep, strangely goes to look for one lost lamb. The woman with a lot of coins, oddly notices that one little coin is missing, and searches high and low for it. And the father with a big household, and his spoiled (maybe favorite) younger son, returned, and all his servants serving, and his friends and extended family having a huge celebration — he goes out from all the joy and hoopla and pride and partying — to find his one lost older, son who despite all he has feels neglected, and sad, and angry, and lost. Oh, how I want to believe in a God who comes again and again to find me even when I am angry at Him and sad about the world and the responsibilities I feel towards it, and when I just feel hopeless and like no one, not even God, cares enough to do something, to care. Jesus is reminding me that no matter how I feel, and although God may seem absent and off celebrating something and someone else, I am never, never alone and even silly little ole’ me is someone worthy of God’s searching heart and absolute love. So, as Jesus might say, we must “go and do likewise”.

What I had to see for myself, today, in this parable is that there is no one, no one, that I am not to care about enough to have compassion for, to try to find a connection with, to search for the humanity in, and to love without judgement, without favor, without prejudice, and without any desire to be “right”. It does not mean that all things are equal or that there isn’t right and wrong, good and bad, truth and un-truths. What is means is that the people I consider “pharisees” or “hypocrites” or self-justifying, prejudiced, whinny, self-righteous, just -playing- it -safe, stuck- in- the -rut -where -I -have -always -been people — or people someone else might consider prodigal, sinful, insignificant, illegal, are also absolutely, positively beloved by God. I know this feels like lemon juice poured on an open wound, but if that is true about the God we want to believe in and know and be a part of, then we are to search in our hearts for the God-given ability to go “find them” and find our common human connection, and find our mutual divinity, our Imago Dei, and we are to love “the least and the lost” and “the high and the mighty” and the “proud and the angry” and the Jew and the Palestinian, and the Hindu and the Jehovah Witness, and the homeless and the celebrity, and the wise and the foolish. And we are to simply without question, love them and invite them to the “celebration”.

There is an ancient and world-wide tradition that calls some humans to keep the voice of prophecy alive, and I admit that at times like these, in the culture and time I live in today, that the prophetic voice is needed and sometimes that voice doesn’t sound very loving or kind. We do not get to see the attitude of the shepherd towards the lost sheep when he finds it. I would have been reading that sheep the riot act: “don’t you go ever getting lost like that again, you naughty little lamb”. And while the woman who finds her one coin calls all her girlfriends to come celebrate, she probably starts to keep her money somewhere she won’t lose more, like in a drawer or a bank or a safe CD. And we never know what happens to the younger, prodigal son after the celebration of the father. He might as he suggested have to work now as servant, having wasted his part of the inheritance. He might take off again, not ready to be healed and whole and at home and the father may one more have to mourn the loss of the prodigal son. But we do know what happens to the older son that the father goes to find. The father tells him that “You are always with me, and all I have is yours”. So, yes, I want to experience the God-love lived through me that one single insignificant, worthless as a 2026 USA penny, coin is worth my search, and that one single stupid, blindly bleating, Kool-Aid-drinking sheep is worth my sacrificial compassion, and the child, the person who does everything I agree with, the one who is “good”, is also often lost in his own mind-traps and sorrowful yearnings and blaming of me and existential crises, and it my responsibility to go and not give a lecture, and not justify my behavior, and not badmouth the prodigals or perceived mutual enemies, but to assure the child in every person that they are loved and that in Love, there is All and More than All .

If we interpret the people in Jesus’ parables as the searchers who represent the character of the Hebrew / Jesus God, then we also have to interpret them as what God calls humans to be like, because that is what all the prophets, and stories, and analogies, and parables in Scriptures do. If you then interpret the people doing the searching and restoring as human beings, which they are in fact in each story, you would then have to conclude that we are to act like the God we want to see in the entirety of the Hebrew and Christian Bible (one big book, often tragically thought to be two). And I believe, that even if you toss out said Bible, any one — atheist, agnostic, Sufi, or Muslim — in their deepest heart of hearts, every one wants to believe in Love, the power of love, and the gift of undeserved Love. We want to believe that someone, somehow, like a good Mother, loves each and every, single, solitary, silly little me. And if we want that, then do we not believe every human wants that, and thus, we are, to riff on Ghandi, to be the person we want to see in everyone else in the world? And that means loving the one single human being who is right in front of us; the one who is in trouble, in need, hidden, misplaced, mistaken, irritating, or downright useless — loving them simply because they are right in front of us and need us, loving that human, that person, that nobody, that silly, little lamb because that is what makes a human being a human Being, “a little lower than angels”. And that kind of weird, crazy behavior that comes out of the kind of love that is quite frankly, bizarre when you think about it, is what makes the God of Jesus, Something, Someone worth at least sort of kinda’ thinking about as a real and loving Presence. No matter how things may seem at the moment, in our lives or in our time and place, every one of us is both lost and searching. We are at the same time the ones trapped in the rubble and the search party of rescuers. Our capacity as human beings for courage, for compassion and empathy, for paradoxical and profound thought, and for the beauty, and wonder, and mystery that lies inside each soul, is what makes us a unique and wonderful species as we live on this beautiful, beautiful Earth. The three parables of lost things are about seeing ourselves and each other, looking at and for each other, searching for and being found by each other with “heart, soul, mind, and actions”. There is something “lost” in each of us, something that has gone astray, something that is longing to be found. And there is something courageous and determined in each of us, something that is longing to keep up the search until the last bit of light has faded. Jesus left us to do the searching for the lost. God has inscribed on our hearts the desire to search and to search with love. And we are promised in the poetry of the Psalmists, “those who seek, will find”. But we each do need to ask ourselves, “what am I truly seeking, and what do I hope to find”? I can’t be certain of course, but the mysteries and parables told by Jesus keep me hopeful that the story ends and we all find the Love we have sought.

Here are some parables of Jesus about the God / Human Search:

Three Parables of Jesus as Remembered in Luke 15

(from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible)

1. The Lost Sheep

So he told them this parable: 4 “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

2. The Parable of the Lost Coin

8 “Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

3.The Parable of the Two Lost Brothers (my re-titling, not Luke’s)

11 Then Jesus[a] said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled his stomach[b] with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’ 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’[c] 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe — the best one — and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate, 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31 Then the father[d] said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ”

Haikus of Trust

Haikus of Trust

By Jane Tawel

Frightened, hard, closed fists.

Yearning, open hands.

Faith is in the unknowning.

A Tree grows in light.

The night stunts its reach.

But the roots grow in the dark.

I have great fear of going blind.

To see nothing would impair my sense of self.

But what senses of Otherness would rise in me,

the blind traveler,

were I to keep walking?

Time for Change

(This is from a FB comment I shared on a post of mine in response to other comments. I thought it might also be worth posting here.)

Thanks for conversation on this and kind words at end — back at ya’.

There are many, many people you can read who can say much, much better what I will try to say here in this strange little forum some of us inhabit on FB. To read about the ultimately destructive and inhuman and unsustainable consequences of the ubercapitalist nation we have created in America, you can find far better thinkers than I. There are literary giants such as Orwell and Steinbeck; politicians from the past such as Abraham Lincoln or FDR; journalists and essayists through the ages too numerous to mention; and of course spiritual giants, such as Jesus, just to name The Big Guy.

What we are seeing in America today is actually the end game of the system we have long called many things other than what it is. The people who have always benefited from this system have now benefitted to such an extent that their oligarchy is unassailable from within the system itself. And so they use other means — such as what communism actually is doing in this nation — our current government is taking public funds and private properties away from the citizens and giving it to either the nation under the guise of Republicanism or giving it to the olligarchy of billionaires that are actually running this country. The way they best do this without our catching on is to make people afraid — fearmongering is the best trick up the sleeve of authoritarians and the men who want to be gods because it keeps people in the smoke and mirror world of creating the “enemy” that they need to fight against — rather than the reality that what we need is to change the very broken system — broken for us, not the greedy narcissists at the top.

What these oligarchs and authoritarians don’t realize is that eventually the system will break down for them as well — they are committing national murder but it is really ultimately suicide. Take the current example you present in their sleight of hand magic show. Mom and Pop stores do not need to fear a change in the system, they need to fight against the current system that has destroyed small businesses across this nation in the same way it has destroyed privately owned farms, and our roads and toll systems, and now our public lands and national parks — that is the boogey man and he is not hiding in the closets of so called “communists”, he is in the halls of power of our current government and billionaires.

So yes — I applaud any one who asks — is it so wrong to entertain the possibility — the hope — that we can change this 250 year old system? Because we have been a part of this system since we killed the people who lived here for their land or enslaved Black people to enrich white people. Today we are simply seeing the tragic results of no longer having any safe guards around the slippery slope. I am all for tryiing something new because this current American system is not only self-destructing at the speed of light but destroying our planet and taking the name of God and the message of Christ to a level of lies and lows that would grieve the most contrite sinner such as I.

Would I rather see my “hard earned cash” go to my struggling neighbors than to the people making themselves rich off of my tax dollars? Yep. Do I see other nations with different named philosophies of true democracy not unchecked capitalism, in the world doing a much better “job” of caring for their citizens, keeping the world safe, and saving the planet — yes, absolutely. Do I want to believe the people in charge who don’t even pretend to hide their lies or greed or hatred? No, I will not believe them and I will not believe there are that many people in America who do want to continue to believe this destructive hogwash.

I have to believe that the soul of America is worth saving because the souls of the little people of every color, religion, job-description, and gender are worth more than any one billionaire or God help us, trillionaire. And if we need some radical changes to save the beautiful things this nation has always aimed for — bring it on.

YOU

YOU

By Jane Tawel

June 10, 2026

Open our eyes,

and let us see.

YOU are Way,

not wall.

YOU are the Open Door

not the closed borders.

YOU are process,

not product.

YOU are not container,

but Cosmos.

YOU are OTHER,

and yet, not other.

Like a MOTHER,

YOU womb me,

Birth me,

Nurse me,

And with opened eyes,

I see only YOU,

And YOU and I are One.

May the Light of Your Love,

Blind us into healed eyes

and new sight.

May the Grace of Your Goodness,

cause us to stumble from our marches

so that we may hold out hands of help

to the bruised and to the fallen.

May the Wonder of Your World,

make us weep with longing

and humble us, and gladden us

to care for this Our Home,

with the same parental care

that YOU, oh, Father care for Your World.

May we fall in love once again,

with this our Home, and these,

our Brothers and our Sisters;

And may we treat all Life — as YOU do —

with the same kindness and nurture

that a Gardener and Farmer gives

the blessed, life-giving Land.

May the Freedom of Your Mercy

Heal our hatreds.

May the selflessness of Your Justice,

replace our false desire for punishment.

And in the Court of Your judgement,

May the oppressed be restored,

the prisoner set free,

the lame walk and the leper dance.

And May Your rivers of righteousness roll down,

rolling and roiling,

as the first become last,

and the last are the first,

and all tumble and meld

into the Oneness that is

Your Kingdom come.

Parent, Creator, Foundation, Friend:

May the Love that is

Of YOU,

And that is beyond comprehension,

May the Mystery of Love that You are

and that You can only be, and can be no other —

May that same Love

that is beyond all human understanding,

and that is also the miracle of Love

available to all humble hearts,

Keep our feet inching forward on The Way,

Keep our minds open to Your Truth,

Keep our wills muscular with the joy of Your Spirit,

And may our hearts beat as One

with You and with All that You Love.

May the Lure of Your Love,

make me, as You were and are,

a fisher of lives —

to patiently cast out the lure of your love

to catch them and release them

back into the OCEAN of YOU,

Just as YOU have caught and released

this small guppy of a girl.

May it Be.

De-linting the Soul

De-linting the Soul

By Jane Tawel

June 30, 2026

My life is like a woolen sweater.

And for better or for worse,

It picks up the lint of cares and woes, and leaves me — at best — fuzzy;

and on my worst days,

underneath the sticky bits and pieces,

You wouldn’t recognize —

for all the obscurations —

the lovely fabric

that I once called my Self.

I wear my heart upon my sleeve

and grieve for wasted hours.

I have spent a life-time (so it seems), continually zapped and attracted to

the static electricity

that draws the small self

to the dross of info-mercials

and the shallow pools of beliefs.

How constricting to Experience

are the tight constraints of creeds

and the ego’s flimsy needs

of knowing the Unknown!

We are so apt

to attract the small things of this world,

and wear them like jello-ey armor.

Snake-charmers offer us

the splith of polyestered promises

and we exchange our Robes of Righteousness

for scraps of fame and fortune.

The heart longs for a Soul washed cool and clean;

and to wear upon the breastplate of Desire,

some Super-Powered magical coat-

a cloak to drape over

this worn and lint-y sweatered, sweltering self;

a cape of invisibility against the clawing chatter;

a coat of many colors to be set-apart;

a cape with wings to fly above and

to soar beyond the latest news or views;

to uncover a covered face that looks only down

upon sinking sandy shoals of un-real real-estates.

I seek the fabric-proof of Wonder

to daily use upon my sweatered self —

the warm embrace of sun on skin

and breeze in hair

and watching dust motes fly

from my small self to scamper in the air.

I seek the Washer

of sweaters, fish, and feet

to wash away the chattel and the floss

of doctrines, policies, and cults

and the small iotas of informational-dross;

of lint, and dust, and things that tear

and all that makes me unaware

of how the Soul longs to be freed,

unclothed and standing unashamed.

As Eve once waltzed

before a Glorious World,

I yearn to cast away this linty life;

clothed only in the glory of

Created Good,

casting off my tattered rags,

uncovered and unclothed,

dancing unencumbered

into our Deep Divinity

and an Eternity of Life

lived Whole and lint-proofed

unraveled and unashamed

the un-Sweatered-Soul

now naked as a baby

that is purely Loved.

Pulling the Flesh Apart

Pulling the Flesh Apart

By Jane Tawel

May 26, 2026

Let us pull it apart — bit by bit.

Lay the body of our transitory knowledge

on The Surgeon’s board.

True, the words became flesh;

but this stuff — this meat —

must be bound on the rack,

pulled out like taffy,

’til our bones bend and crack.

Words should be tortured,

eviscerating the bowels we call facts.

Our gut tells us something

is Realer than real —

Deeper than definitions,

Truer than the skeletons of

Only what we can see and taste and touch –

Oh! We are meant to touch the very Being —

We are meant to be stretched into smallness

Split into Wholeness,

and cured unto death.

Only oxymorons, symbols, metaphors and myths —

Only songs and pictures —

Only stories of salve — ations,

Only tales of trudging the long road toward home,

Only legends of those who die for Love,

Only these are meant to live forever.

Oh, we must lay our small selves on the Cross.

We must die to the language of our answers

And float in the ocean of our questions.

How mysterious is the human hand!

How awe-inspiring the body’s eye!

And what beyond what I am called to name,

Can I sense beyond my wonderous senses —

Moves and lives in the being I call “myself”?

There is Some-thing, Some-One, Some-Life/Self —

Who is beyond all language —

beyond all materials and all body,

beyond the mind’s best truest truths.

There is a Word the mind knows not.

A Name. A Life. A Presence.

The Word that sweetly sings to us

to be let in the cages of our heads and hearts,

and once, when homing there,

flutters like a small bird,

Singing songs of wordless Love and Life,

in flight and free within the Heart —

Though not a “thing”, a word must do —

Beyond, above, deeper, wider, purer, timeless —

Some thing — visceral —

Some thing — that moves and breathes and has its being

Some thing — despite all longing, we can not name —

from a heart that no longer beats

but Swells –

Cresting until it bursts through

the walls of this poor substance

that I call, “myself”.

The Soul — burst asunder into

pieces of The Whole.

No longer words on paper

But The Word made flesh in us,

a Picture worth an Eternity of words.

No longer flesh and blood,

But Bread and Wine.

Given, so all may have Life,

And Life Abundant.

Life granted, beyond syllables.

Life, lived beyond flesh.

Life, here and now

in the Stillness

here beyond death.

Hope in the World, Just Not Yet at Home

by Jane Tawel

In the past couple days there is evidence of several amazing world events and leaders that give me hope — they just aren’t in America sadly. (Let’s hope that there is a “yet” to that first sentence.) Hungary — Wow! Canada and Prime Minister Mark Carney — Wow. Wow. Pope Leo — WOW! WOW! WOW! These three examples alone of moral integrity and truth spoken with love are lights in a dark time. This is unlike the haters and foolish, dark-minded people currently in our nation’s administration, congress, and in the ranks of their supporters, (either openly or behind the scenes), who are running our nation into the ground. They instead are gleefully filling their coffers or excusing those who are using them for their own enrichment while offending everyone, creating fallacious conflicts that kill innocent people, and ruining not just America’s and the world’s economy, but creating decades of dire problems for our children and our planet. This is overwhelming enough but add to that the continuous drip, drip, drip of blaspheming or changing beyond all recognition what some of these people say they believe as a world view, Christianity, and that they even say they want to be our national “religion” (something our nation considered a dangerous oxymoron) but a belief system if when looked at honestly, stands against everything that we see coming to horrible fruition today; a Faith which is truly and in actuality the moral imperative good people of all religions or just all good humans are called to follow. We have slid down the slippery slope the oligarchs and capitalism have long been slipping on.

But despite what we are hearing: Exceptionalism isn’t individualism, it is holding oneself to an exceptional standard; leading without morality isn’t leadership, its narcissm; and empathy is not a weakness but the best way to understand the onus of the greatest power the universe knows — Love. I know there are enough people in America who remember what we are called to be at our best — caring, sharing, accepting, just, truthful, and free. There is always light, no matter how dark it may seem, if we look hard enough. Keep looking ahead; keep looking around you; keep looking for the helpers. And keep hoping. Be the Light you are called to today.

Hope’s Plucked Feathers and Bits of Light

Hope’s Plucked Feathers and Bits of Light

By Jane Tawel

Thoughts and riffing on Emily Dickinson’s poem, “hope is the thing with feathers” and meditation on the quality of our Light.

The feathers of hope seem plucked to the skin.

The chill seas have plasticized Beauty.

The soul is not perched but in free-fall it seems.

And the sweet tunes are perniciously wordy.

We are abashed with fire and ash

Hearts sore from flight from Power’s storms

Frigidity of soul-less gales

Compassion’s hands, hard to keep warm.

I am this one small speck of dust

Blown by the Wind of time and place.

But even bits of dust can shine

Reflecting Light’s Eternal Flame.

The shore seems further now than then

And like a bird in flight, I long for rest.

My heart is fluttering, fearful, tense,

and all the raging makes no sense

When all we little creatures want

The same –

safe-keeping, seeds, clean air, warm nests.

Hope flies again in fleeting moments

when the clouds clear from my mind.

And through the dark and thundering storms

I sometimes glimpse the Rainbow’s Light beyond.

I think She meant when once she said,

“Hope is the thing with feathers” —

It’s not a thing that I can know.

For who can understand a bird?

A bird still awes me — Creation’s Wonder —

And maybe just as wonderous, so is Hope.

We can not understand or cage

this marvelous grace of hopefulness.

Just as I can not make The Light,

but only clear my soul for His Reflection.

There’s nothing I can give to Hope,

“It asks no crumb from me”.

But even in extremities,

crumbs from Life’s Bounteous Tables can be sweeped

into our waiting, emptied bowls.

And as Our Mother felt Her womb-child leap,

Hope perches — fluttering, moving —

Waiting to be born to Life,

once more today within our souls.

On Behalf of my Nation, I am So Sorry Ukraine

Reading Heather Cox Richardson on America’s ignoble new philosophy on international “diplomacy” — not! Read her every day, but please read this today to understand my comments below.

Growing up during the Cold War, watching Congress and the Courts do their jobs, even when it meant accepting we could not tolerate the crimes of President Nixon, weeping when I saw the Berlin Wall fall, weeping again when I saw the first Black President, Barack Obama, take his sacred oath of office, knowing America to be at least in her best moments, a defender of others against tyranny and international criminals, a believer in justice for ALL and truth and freedom for ALL — I never in a million years would have believed what has happened and is happening in my country today, nor that any American, let alone so-called “Christian-Nationalist” American, would tolerate this for a minute after realizing what it is. We are literally letting an international law-breaking half-wit lead us. Seriously? Why? Because the elite oligarchy of business and political uber-greedy are happy with the complete lack of truth and justice and law and order and the chaos based on stupidity and false “doctrine”, and they are gaining more money — more money than any one would ever use in a million years. America has been inching toward this, yes, but this is an avalanche. Have we been perfect — even always good? No, of course not. But this? No. We have never been this. To live in a nation that sends its mockery of an army against its own civilians but will not send its well-funded and exceptional military resources to aid another democracy — we are no longer being run by Americans in our federal government; we are being run by the shysters, the Mob, and the Anti-Christs of this world. We are sending our greedy incompetents or our literally pardoned felons of international crimes to represent us in the world. Shame and sorrow. We can no longer claim to be that “shining city on a hill” when our government has decided to throw it all on the garbage heap to enhance their own warped greed and power-hungry narcissism. May Ukraine and Europe find the strength and will to fight evil. May small Americans use their voices and actions to stand up for what the dream of America is meant to be at its best. May we who believe Jesus had something to say about this be the compassionate political activist that He was. And shame on America. Perhaps through shame, we may still find our way forward to be that “one Nation under God” and that “shining city on a hill”. Meanwhile — My heart weeps for us all.

Nature Has No Kingdoms

https://unsplash.com/photos/sun-light-passing-through-green-leafed-tree-EwKXn5CapA4

Nature Has No Kingdoms

By Jane Tawel

February 22, 2026

Nature has no kingdoms.

No names, but what we give them.

No fame, but when we use them.

No needs but those we rape from them.

The fish and trees and God-created birds and bees,

are at the mercy of man’s own ego-needs.

Creation can’t fight back at us

because a Mother’s love can not destroy her child.

She must look on with helpless care,

as her human children hack her limbs

and nuke her beating heart

into a burning cess pool —

once burning deep with Love —

now shallow, broiling,

heart still aflame

in Nature’s dying throes.

Nature loves its anonymity,

its secrets and Its secret stores

of pleasure, beauty, and divine intentions.

Nature loves a vacuum — of human willfulness.

But otherwise, It thrives and strives

and circling, circling, circling

treasuring moments,

Creation throbs

with Holy Love and Life.

Why do the people again and again —

throughout our shallow, fleeting things

that we call history and our place and time —

Cry and demand the rule and greed of kings?

What does a small man need to need a king?

We circle and circle and circle the years;

we circle and circle and circle the drain;

and ever and always again and again

we forget our faith and place our fears

in the hands of the tyrants and idolatrous gods

in this man-made valley of unnatural tears.

Oh, small and longing human,

rest your eyes on the greens of the hills,

arouse your awakening in the blues of deep waters,

feel the soft earth beneath your bare feet,

listen to birdsong and small things in the night

let all Creation restore you to your true nature.

Creation is God’s first and only trusty scripture.

You have no need of earthly kings,

for there is One Whose Kingdom comes —

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

and today —

in Father, Heir, and Spirit –

and in this Earth, our Mother and our Home.

Here and Now. Be still and know.

We live and move and have our being,

here, where meaning pulses, and souls long,

heart to heart, twinkling-stars to songful-dawn.

In small-ish things, great Mystery lives.

The Tree of Life takes root and grows

above and through and in us all.

We need no one with clay-shod feet

to give us faith in what we can not speak.

Nature needs no idols.

Like Her, we worship best

in love of Known-Unknown.

Like Her, we worship best

when all are free, and all are One.

Creation — moving, growing, groaning —

Creates and recreates a Holy Throne.

Like leaves that fall and mulch the earth,

We only rise to glory who die to find rebirth.

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