A measure of kindness

After Galatians 5:22-23 and 2 Samuel 9:1-7 

Summoned, he thinks,

to his condemnation

and death, he learns

instead that lands

are to be restored,

position is to be

restored, honor is

to be paid. Instead

of condemnation

and death, he’s been

summoned to honor,

summoned to life.

Kindness to a man

changed his life;

kindness to people

transforms empires.

 

It is a picture, a photograph:

summoned to expected

death, we instead

have been summoned

to life.

 

Photograph by Andrea Tummons via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Back When We Had Friends – Greg Morse at Desiring God.

 

“Air and Angels,” poem by John Donne – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“Thus with the year, seasons return” – Anthony Esolen at Word and Song.

 

I Used to Race the Sun – Henry Lewis at Story Warren.

 

Hallowed Be Thy App – Madeleine Kearns at The Free Press.

 

The Prayer Without Ceasing – Dwight Torkington at The Imaginative Conservative.

Kindness on the Mountaintop

The Winter 2025 edition of Cultivating Oaks Press is now online, and the theme of this issue is kindness. You can read a number of essays and articles on the subject, and the authors include Annie Nardone, Amelia Friedline, Tom Darin Liskey, Rob Jones, Amy Malskeit, Lara d’Entremont, Matthew Clark, Christina Brown, Junius Johnson, Kirk Manton, Sam Keyes, Sheila Vamplin, and several more. 

I have a short story on the theme, “Kindness on the Mountaintop,” and you can read it here.

 

Photograph by Jess Zoerb via Unsplash. Used with permission.

 

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Things Worth Remembering: The Zionism of Martin Luther King, Jr. – Douglas Murray at The Free Press.

 

Onward – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Winter’s Cold and Storms in Civil War Art – Brian Swartz at Emerging Civil War.

 

Diaspora 64 – poem by Oliver de la Paz at Literary Matters.

 

Trump is Uncool. And That’s a Good Thing – Peter Savodnik at The Free Press.

 

“I Sought the Wood in Winter,” poem by Willa Cather – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

She found the field

After Ruth 2:1-18 

Without knowing

any better she

found the field

owned by the man

who would show

favor, the man

who heard about

her, her story,

the man who knew

what she had given

up and why, the man

who repaid her 

kindness with one

of his own.

His kindness is

a picture, a type

of the unimaginable

kindness of God.

 

Photograph by Matteo Raimondi via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

The Pains of Sleep – poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

Another Doubting Sonnet – Renee Emerson at Rabbit Room Poetry. 

 

‘I Talk to God in Public’ – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review talks with Wheaton professor and writer Esau McCaulley. 

 

One Day Leads to Another – Seth Lewis.

 

Who Was the ‘Black Spurgeon’? – Kelvin Washington at The Gospel Coalition.

A kindness

After Ruth 2:1-18 

She left all she knew,

home, family, everything

familiar, to travel with

her mother-in-law back

home. The others 

returned to their own

families, but she left

all behind, faithful 

to her dead husband 

and his mother. It was

a kindness, a blessing.

Her story was told,

shared among the people

she now lived with, she

a foreigner, an alien,

among strangers and

enemies. A kindness

recognized, a kindness 

told to the owner 

of the field, the owner

who favored her and

blessed her. It was

a kindness on his part,

a kindness given

for a kindness shown. 

 

Photograph by Mona Eendra via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Releasing Artists to Renew Culture: A new course to help you engage with the arts – Think Theology. 

 

Throw Yourself Away in Hope: The Sacred Death of Fatherhood – Greg Morse at Desiring God.

 

The Incredible Blessing of My Father’s Difficult Final Months – Ruth Wood at Eternal Perspective Ministries.

 

Selina Hastings: The Means of Doing Much Good – Vance Christie.