Through this life I travel
growing, changing, being changed.
My only constant the Self
the core me I can always recognize.

We are here for an unknown finite duration
moving through this ethereal passage.

Present with no reason why I’m here
in my youth I happened upon this affinity
grown into a hope a chance dream
to leave my mark with even one verse
that time will hold on to.

Through this passage we’re each alone
even in the company of others.

Without understanding it,
breathing is to sit with paper
and scribble thoughts that come to me.
Equally as unrelenting and unfathomable
is the desire to share with even one person.

If I had to choose having
a companion through this nebulous ephemeral passage
until our time together is done,
or having a verse known through millennia
I might actually lay down my pen
to share my limited time with one who gets me.
I might…

©2009 Shari Lynne Smothers

Prompt: Take the phrase “Through this (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Day 28 of the 2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge from Poetic Asides

Much time I spend
spinning my thoughts
around tomorrow and tomorrow
making the effort
to have better experiences
when I get to it as a today.

Yesterday is done
well closed out
seeing holes where I fell,
places I can shore up
to make my walk steadier.

Much of what I skipped
was in my personal work.
As always
I see my dreams were left for last.
So long lain dormant
and yet
they didn’t wax and wane.
Instead they began
shouting to me
demanding their time.

Today, three days into
Two Thousand Nine,
I’m working diligently
to give voice and breath
to the dreams that insist
on being made manifest.

What I’ve done
is yield to what calls me.
I write and post
to blog and website
recording verses and thoughts.

It is a joyous time,
that fosters in me
hope that I can continue
to enjoy myself and find income
in this activity that makes me happy.

©2009 by Shari Lynne Smothers

2007 Written by Kirk Byron Jones
Author of seven books including
Morning B.R.E.W.: A Divine Power Drink for Your Soul

This book presents a wonderfully fresh approach to the way we choose to live. We give over to God, big choices that He gave us free will and guides to handle. We are designed to be more responsible for what we do on earth in a way that takes nothing of power and glory from God. In fact, it is honoring God to exercise the freedom that He placed before us.

Purpose is not something we passively receive from God;
purpose is something we actively create with God.

Dr. Jones’ deft explanation of this responsible way of living is clear and provocative. Infusing and enlightening. And on the heels of Morning B.R.E.W. which focuses how we prepare ourselves to enter the day, Holy Play is the book that focuses on what we do in the world.

I have read this book and written to the author in the margins of the pages in my usual exchange of my ideas with those presented. I wanted to do a review as soon as I finished the last word, last year when I got the book.

There wasn’t time because I immediately began to put into practice, the conclusions that I’d drawn. In the inscription in my book from Dr. Jones he wrote “Keep playing your song.” It took me some time and some meditations to realize that my song was indeed playing in the background of my life.

I have been interested in many things in my life. And I sought the one thing that I was supposed to do for life. No matter the jobs that I had, three things always came to the forefront, usually under “other duties as assigned.” I had often thought that I would love to place these things in the forefront of my job and work at them for a living. And then I let it go as something perhaps not meant for me.

According to Dr. Jones, it’s acceptable, even natural to have many interests. In fact, we have the strength to achieve things not readily available.

The third layer or zone of your strength is the most potent and underused element. It is your capacity to create options, to develop opportunities that would not exist apart from your capacity to conceptualize and enact them. This is the power of carving a path where there is none, or as Isaiah hears God saying, “making a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19).

Dr. Jones’ book Holy Play provided the impetus I sought, the external permission in compliment with my self permission, to play my song. To increase the volume so I could hear it in the foreground. I began to allow my dreams to inform my choices and to silence my “monitor” that was always present with “Perhaps you shouldn’t.”

Today I live my dream on several fronts and I know that it’s because I chose to do it. And I don’t doubt that God had been preparing me all my life—all I had to do was choose. One of my favorite passages in the bible is that of God asking the lame man if he wanted to be healed. That has resonated with me ever since I learned it so many years ago.

It seemed that so many pieces came together for me with this book at this time in my life. What I got from it all is this: Even the obviously lame must choose to accept the blessings available to them. You have to ask. I asked, I said yes, I sought and it was given me. And I am grateful every day.

I choose to participate in my life, to create in joyful communion with God, the path I walk. Holy Play is an excellent book for those of us who are willing to see God as the author of our human freedom. It’s for those of us willing to participate in developing our opportunities.