The place of honor

After Luke 14:7-11 

How easy it is

to lose the place

of honor to someone

more distinguished,

more accomplished,

more talented,

more recognized,

wealthier, better

looking, more 

anything. So easy.

So do not seek,

he says, the place

of honor, so easy

to lose, but seek

a lower place,

and be content.

And be surprised

if you are called

to the place

of honor.

 

Photograph by Thomas William via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

My Brother in Galilee – poem by Brian Yapko at Society of Classical Poets.

 

The Fairy Tale Reversal – Isabel Chenot at Story Warren.

 

Oh, Love – poem by Thomas á Kempis at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

Prayers Make a Difference – Mari-Anna Stålnacke at Flowing Faith.

 

Be a Man, Go to Church – Anne Kennedy at Demotivations with Anne.

 

Unveiled, They Appear – poem by David Hollywood at Society of Classical Poets.

Making the Time for Writing - and Honoring It

In On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts, Ann Kroeker and Charity Craig ask this question: To what extant have you arranged your space and time to honor your writing?

I joke with my wife that only three poets in the United States make a living from writing poetry, and two of them are Billy Collins.

Expanding from poetry to writing in general, how many novelists actually support themselves by strictly writing? Likely more than you find in poetry, but it’s equally likely that the number can be counted – it’s not huge. James Patterson. Stephen King. Some romance writers. 

The number is finite and knowable.

For the rest of us, we likely write whenever we can cram in a minute or 30 minutes or an hour. I write whenever I find a moment to write.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Christian Poets & Writers.

An Action Verb

I was reading about Sal Giunta, the U.S. Army staff sergeant who recently received the Medal of Honor. What he did – which he thinks was no big deal – went far beyond what any of us would consider heroic. He fully deserves the Medal of Honor and any other recognition people want to pass in his direction.

That story set me to thinking.

A lot of my online friends are selecting a word for 2011, a word that will describe what they are about, or hope to be about, or hope to accomplish. Jeanne Damoff selected “rest.” Michael Perkins picked “story.” Jennifer Dukes-Lee picked “imperfect,” which is absolutely brilliant. Bonnie Gray at Faith Barista is hosting a blog carnival today on exactly that subject – pick a word for 2011.

I thought about this for a long time. Choosing one word isn’t as easy as it might appear. I tried several on but discarded them. Nothing seemed to fit.

Then it came, unexpectedly, like a lot of things do. I was washing dishes. I toyed with it through the drying and getting out the garbage for tomorrow (a major undertaking; this week our community has gone to curbside recycling, weekly trash pickup and a maximum of five bags of trash per week; I feel tres California). I stuffed all the trash into the bags and kept thinking about the word.

Yes, this was it.

Honor. The verb. Not the noun.

I like this word. I like the fact that it means more than simply “encourage.”

You can honor a person for something they’ve done, something wonderful or heroic, Like Sgt. Giunta, or you can honor them simply because the person is.

But then I wondered: can you really honor someone simply for their being?

The answer was obvious. Of course you can.

It’s because we are all made in God’s image, and that fact alone means that each of us are worthy to be honored and revered and deemed valuable. Beauty is immaterial. Wealth and power and position don’t matter. How high or low an IQ we have is no consideration. Simply because we are made in God’s image, we are worthy to be honored. All of us.

So I’m setting off on a pilgrimage of sorts. This will be my year to find ways to let people know they are honored, simply because they are.

And honor is an action verb.


To see what others have selected as their word for 2011, please visit Bonnie Gray’s Faith Barista site.

Photograph: Rose by Vojko Kalan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.