The Grand Bazaar across from The Citadel, which has been continuously inhabited for 6,000 years, is full of those fidgets as well.

For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared,
    a great king over all the earth. Psalm 47:2

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In Him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed His offspring.’ Acts  7:24-28

All creatures of our God and King,

Lift up your voice and with us sing,

Allelula, allelula!

O burning sun with golden beam,

And shining moon with silver gleam,

O praise Him, O praise Him,

Allelula, allelula, allelula!

Alan Wale’s eleven-year-old nephew’s eyes lit up when he saw me. He sidled up and asked, “Are you a teacher?” I nodded in the affirmative, to which he responded, “So, do you let students bring their phones into class?”

In one of Scott’s recent missives there was a rhetorical query, “Do you feel the earth from there? Do you feel the far-flung lands and people? Do you feel how close we really are, geographically and humanly?” 

Dusk is the favorite time of day. I just returned from my first solitary stroll, just as the haze shifted from gold to deep orange and darkness. I brought my cell phone just in case, but the tangled web of streets is starting to form patterns in my memory.

Ladies dressed in black from head to toe are out watering their grapevines and oleanders. The guy whose garden is just at the big turn in the road has a bunch of the ugliest scrawniest chickens ever who delight to gobble whatever he is tossing at them. The mother from the other morning was sitting at the corner in her plastic chair enjoying the tiniest hint of a breeze, but alas, I was unable to answer the volley of questions that sounded an awful lot like a dinner invitation. Another guy was washing his truck, Dustin style, and I ached a bit for my French family. Another was kneeling, laying a tiny brick patio in his garden.

The coolest thing around here is the walking track, so I did a couple of vueltas. It is much smaller than the Udall track, but it has some great heavy plastic weightlifting equipment in the middle that attracts all sorts. Dre would even like it, it so cool. There were a few old men on the benches smoking cigarettes, but really, most folks were pretty brisk and focused. Across the street popcorn was being sold. One by one, bright neon signs popped on over the shops hoping to attract the evening crowd.

And yes, there is nothing new under the sun.

On the back of the “Draw a scientist, and you have ten minutes” paper, I asked the teachers to answer the very same questions I have asked sixth graders for twenty-seven years: What is the best thing about school; the most difficult thing about school; and one thing I should know about you.

Every single one of the middle school teachers struggle with classroom management.

Except for the kindly old Physics teacher, they are all young, passionate and vaguely overwhelmed. Me too. I sent them home with the assignment to write three Students Will Be Able To Objectives for the end of our three weeks together, but as I stare at files and files of possibilities I flounder wondering how to weave together meaningful, engaging and most of all, helpful classes that will truly make life just a little easier for these guys when I get onto my plane for Istanbul on that last Saturday before dawn flight.

Dear LORD God, give me creativity and clarity. May I listen without interrupting and may I finish my sentences.

Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In Him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed His offspring.’

Exactly one year ago I sat in the garden outside of San Damiano monastery, Assisi, Italy, where St. Francis first received His calling, joining so many throughout the centuries seeking to hear His voice. So very far away, so very long ago.

My brother sent me a poem yesterday that I carried in my heart all day long.

Answer to Prayer

I pray sometimes

            sometimes in English or emptiness

            sometimes in longing or in the mystery of incarnation

I don’t know how long to sit waiting on the morning rock

            or on the pine needle chair

            or on the tide-bound sand for your answers

You might speak back to me in any one of innumerable languages—

            maybe in silence or Cantonese or Arabic

            maybe a bird fluttering in the sunrise or a whispering coniferous wind

In the shallows of my relativity, I know that you own all of the sounds and spaces

            all of the lights and shadows

            all of the words and not-words

At the end of the day I know that you have, after all, spoken

            spoken so much that your words have taken up all of everything

            spoken until there is nothing left without your voice in it

And I, usually hard-of-hearing, just might have to listen for you

            in a variety of

            unexpected languages  -Scott Coverdale

I think there is a full moon tonight.

You sweep us away like a dream.

The Refrain

Be still, then, and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth.

For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past and like a watch in the night. Psalm 90:5

There is no need to set an alarm. I wake up in the stillness like clockwork. I have been doing this early morning gig ever since I starting trying to beat little three-year-old Anita to the punch. Finally I just started sending her off with Cindy to milk goats so I could have a few moments. To sort through which day it is and what the plans might be. And my list of beloved souls. One by one to lay each plan, each hope, each child of God before the feet of the LORD God Almighty.

And each day pounds itself out five minutes at a time. I can do anything for another five minutes, I whisper to myself. 

In the evening it is dried up and withered.

Be still, then, and know that I am God.

Actually Nicol’s first word was chivo as well. And I would send my not-quite-toddling child off with the neighborhood kids to play with the baby goats while Mencho and I did the neighborhood prayer walk from the stillness of our living room table.

And each day pounds itself out five minutes at a time. I can do anything for another five minutes, I whisper to myself. 

In the evening it is dried up and withered.

Be still, then, and know that I am God.

Little Andreita was glued to the loving hip of Hernando as he spread his kindness throughout the old ranch house. I still have all of those tattered prayer journals, somewhere.

Where oh where have the years gone? 

And each day pounds itself out five minutes at a time. I can do anything for another five minutes, I whisper to myself. 

In the evening it is dried up and withered.

Be still, then, and know that I am God.

Jenny found another amazing gift for me again at the downtown Artisans’ Street Fair.

In the lower right-hand corner kneels a woman in prayer, still and at peace.

And before her lies the seemingly arduous pilgrimage, up, up to high places. Lots of steep staircases. A few green pastures of gentle rest. But even more dark tunnels with no light at the end of them.

Yet at every bend an angel stands. Ministering Spirits. On watch. Alert. Strong and able to comfort and protect this little wandering sheep.

And this morning I knelt into today’s true perspective, and how indeed the days fade away into nothingness, the smashing crashing days whose ripples settle into a quiet blur, a dream that can’t quite be caught.

Be still, then, and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth.

May His face shine upon you.

The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my Strength and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:14 So the Joy Dare was about giving thanks for what was in my heart. And one thing in my heart is my lists of fixed prayer people. And while I would love to say that they are the continual meditation of my heart, I cannot. But when they are the meditation of my heart, it is an acceptable gift in His sight. And today I gave thanks for Seth and Karen Barnes, marveling whom they have become over the years since those steamy hot young years when we all worked in the Dominican Republic. And they visited us in the refugee camp when I Nicole had the measles which somehow slid into pneumonia and somewhere in there was the dehydration room. That was a rough spring. But certainly Seth and Karen have embraced their calling to follow him on The Grand Adventure. And it is indeed a great joy to be race around the world with them in my prayers. And the Adams. I remember them back when they were doing their residencies. And we saw each of them more than they saw each other. And when I brought Nicole back to the States, I took her to Mary at University Medical Center cause she was pretty much a two-year-old mess. And Mary called her supervisor, who called his supervisor, all the way to the top, and he made an announcement over the loudspeaker for all residents to come see something that they would never see again…four skin diseases layered one on top of the other.  And I will never forget all of those gowned bodies pressed into one small room looking at a rather shy Little Nicole. Rod over at infectious diseases always promised that if we brought him up a new and exciting giardia strain, he would name it after us. And now the Adams walked away, truly have given up house and brothers and sisters and children and property, for His sake and for the Good News; for the joy set before them, they picked up their cross and followed Him to northern Kenya where Rod teaches at the Aga Khan University Hospital and Mary coordinates community health projects for mothers and children. And I get to join them before the throne of Grace every single Wednesday morning. And my brother and his family in New Hampshire. And the Voelkels in Vermont. And some boys whose momma asked me to add them to my list. And a student from Wildcat who asked me to pray for him. And Kevin and Elaheh. And a list of Nicole’s friends from college, as well as the brother who visited us that Christmas, And each of my students and each of the Imago Dei staff. Pause over each one, each one who is in my heart. And all of the beloved people who have joined my heart family over the years: Cameron, Fernanda and Wilson, Charly, Markus, Chaska and Tika, Kate, Ira, Ray, Carla, Marco, Mateo, Ali, Wali, Igor, Fredric, Shaun, Giovanni, John, Manuel, Daniel. And Alan. Nicole, Heather, Dustin, Andrea. May each of these be my acceptable meditation today. And may I rest today in this place, kneeling before my Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. That according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth,  and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. How can I but not be filled with mercy and peace as I kneel before God our Maker? And may the words of mouth come from this treasure of my heart. Unlike a flame set on fire by hell itself. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.  And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. My Strength and my Redeemer.