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# Jody Collins| Author, Poet, Teacher

I help parents and educators teach children how to make friends with poetry.

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## Posts

- [Blog](https://jodyleecollins.com/blog/) - Blog Browse Poetry Resources Life & Faith Rhymes poetry resources · life & faith · rhymes for reflection Latest in Poetry Resources View all posts... download your free Poetry 101 starter kit EMAIL ADDRESS YES PLEASE! Thank you for subscribing! Latest from the Blog View all posts...
- [3 Summer Poetry Activities to Keep Kids Learning](https://jodyleecollins.com/simple-poetry-activities-to-keep-kids-learning-without-realizing-it-all-summer/) - With summer in full swing, where parents (and grandparents) find themselves planning all manner of activities for kids, it's hard to know how to balance fun and play with a little bit of learning. (Be sure to scroll to the end of this post for a FREE download of these 3 activities!) In this blog post,
- [Nine Reasons to add poetry to your home school rhythms](https://jodyleecollins.com/9-reasons-to-add-poetry-to-your-home-school-rhythms/) - And resources to get you started If you have ever been on the fence.... about adding poetry to your homeschool rhythms I am here as your Poetry Evangelist with Nine Reasons (points? facets? features?) to encourage you to make friends with poetry. It is no secret in my conversations with Home School parents there are
- [3 Read-Alouds For Kids & Grown-ups: Picture Book, Poetry & Art](https://jodyleecollins.com/3-read-alouds-for-kids-grown-ups/) - Summer has arrived. It’s time to sit down with a good summer read. Here are three books I highly recommend adding to your Summer Read Aloud List.
- [How to Write a Memoir Poem- "wHERE i'M From"](https://jodyleecollins.com/i-am-from-an-interview-poem/) - Where I'm From I am from doughboy pools and homemade Barbie housesfrom Huffy bikes and Helms Bakery donuts.I am from three sisters to a room and broad green bermuda lawns.I am from bright sandy beaches and weeping willowswhose drooping green sheltered me from California’s sun.I am from Coppertone and Sun-Infrom Helen and Wes and John.I am
- [Random Ramblings the Week of My 70th Birthday](https://jodyleecollins.com/random-ramblings-the-week-of-my-70th-birthday/) - I got a notice from the Neptune Society this week. Seriously. I felt like calling or emailing them to say, "I'm turning 70 this week. I am not dying." It's weird to do the math confirming I am, in fact, entering my eighth decade and realize I feel maybe 35 inside. Know what I mean?
- [Ten Things About my Mother (for my birthday)](https://jodyleecollins.com/ten-things-about-my-mother-for-my-birthday/) - One of the things I miss the most about teaching Elementary School is reading aloud from favorite childrens' books. There's a chapter in Kate DiCamillo's 'Because of Winn-Dixie' about a "big, ugly, suffering dog with a sterling sense of humor" whom the main character, Opal, names because she found him outside the Winn-Dixie grocery store.
- ["Mining the Bright Birds: Poems of Longing for Home" is Here](https://jodyleecollins.com/mining-the-bright-birds-poems-of-longing-for-home-is-here/) - Dear Kind Readers, as you may know (and for those who are new here--welcome!) my second book of poetry, Mining the Bright Birds: Poems of Longing for Home found a publishing home earlier this year at a small press in Oregon. I wrote about the background of the book in June (three months have flown
- [3 Poems for Holy Week](https://jodyleecollins.com/3-poems-for-holy-week/) - Pressed into Joy Golden oil in rounded vesselliquid lightrefracting sun in shimmers.Mirrored shape reflects on glassy surfaceand I wonder at thedrop, drop, dropsof light as theydrip, drip, dripdown.All this tastingjoyfulness becausesomething was crushedand pressed,leaving light. True Wood Pears thunk and plop on barren, yellow grass alone, not-gathered. The tree bore fruit but there is no one to eat
- [Female Faith Poet-Phillis Wheatley](https://jodyleecollins.com/female-faith-poet-phillis-wheatley/) - Several years ago in a biography of preacher and evangelist Jonathan Edwards, I read about slave poet Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784). Wheatley wrote an elegy for George Whitefield, one of Jonathan Edwards' dear friends, therefore her mention in Edwards' biography. Whitefield and Edwards were pillars of the Great Awakening that swept the world from England to
- [5 Female Faith Poets (Plus A Free List with 12 more!)](https://jodyleecollins.com/5-female-poets-of-faith/) - The world of Christian faith poetry is a rich one, not only that of young writers but female poets 'of a certain age.' Here is small round up of 5 favorites. Be sure to scroll to the end of the post for a complete list of 17 Female Faith Poets. --Abigail Carroll That I Might
- [Five Questions for...Sophfronia Scott](https://jodyleecollins.com/five-questions-for-sophfronia-scott/) - I met Sophfronia Scott at the Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids April 2018. I'd admired her writing work from afar, particularly an essay in Ruminate magazine about dancing in her kitchen. I knew she'd be speaking at the Festival and scanned the meeting places, looking for her beautiful dreadlocks and beaming smile. I
- [The Most Remarkable Missionary You've Never Heard Of](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-most-remarkable-missionary-youve-never-heard-of/) - The eyes of the world have been watching Arab refugees pour into Europe the last several months**. Fear has fueled many of the reactions of folks across the continents as there has been talk and concern about the people flooding Europe–they are Muslims and could therefore possibly be terrorists. A gross misrepresentation, but sadly true nonetheless. Because
- [On Reading Harry Potter for the First Time](https://jodyleecollins.com/on-reading-harry-potter-for-the-first-time/) - My husband and I sat for a few moments in the waning daylight of September's first day, swatting away persistent mosquitoes and chatting about unfinished summer projects. The bittersweet end of August that sidles up to the beginning of Autumn always surprises me by the quick demise of sunlight and sudden arrival of the evening.
- [Female Faith Poet-Tania Runyan](https://jodyleecollins.com/female-faith-poet-tania-runyan/) - Some poets' work take your breath away or stop you in your tracks with an 'aha'! Some will challenge you to see the world a different way than before. Tania Runyan's work does all that. Of her many works, her two volumes of poetry based on Scripture prompts intrigued me the most. "Second Sky"
- [Female Faith Poet-Susan Cowger](https://jodyleecollins.com/susan-cowger-slender-warble-poetry/) - Susan Cowger confesses she was the 'black sheep' in the family, not quite fitting into the mold of family vocations--nurses, pharmacists, sensible people. Instead, her first language was art, a calling that led to a BA in Fine Art (1977) from Montana State University and subsequent MFA in Poetry with a secondary emphasis in Art
- [Finding My Name~an Easter Week Story](https://jodyleecollins.com/finding-my-namean-easter-week-story/) - When my mother was taken by cancer at the age of 55 and I was 33, there was no estate to divide, no money to deposit, no silver to share. After she was gone, I wasn’t saddened by the loss of anything tangible like an inheritance, but because there were questions I would never have answers
- [Frequency--Hearing God Speak Above the Waves](https://jodyleecollins.com/frequency-hearing-god-speak-above-the-waves-a-poem/) - Frequency There was always a tune in the heart of God A song that He sang over us. The melody came with a note from above A chorus from the Father of love. But the tune met resistance-titanium, stone Even water that blocked all the notes. Was everyone drowning, message nullified, absorbed? Perhaps the enchantment
- [Monet's Haystacks - On Keeping at It](https://jodyleecollins.com/monets-haystacks-on-keeping-at-it/) - Monet’s Haystacks (or On Keeping at It) Monet painted haystacks one by one from 1890 to ’91, In all kinds of weather, Spring through Fall, Summer and winter he painted them all. Twenty-five haystacks—that’s a lot of paint But he simply kept going, this artistic saint. He prayed with his brushes and oils and such
- [Can You Hear the Buzz?](https://jodyleecollins.com/can-you-hear-the-buzz/) - "Nothing is so like a soul as a bee. It goes from flower to flower as a soul from star to star, and it gathers honey as a soul gathers light." Victor Hugo 'Ninety-Three', 1879 I was walking the neighborhood Saturday morning on an uncommonly nice, warm day. Oh, the joy of sunshine and azure
- [Five Smooth Stones](https://jodyleecollins.com/five-smooth-stones/) - Oak tree, Audubon Park New Orleans The story of David and Goliath in I Samuel 17 takes place in the valley of Elah--'oak'. Perhaps there were strong, towering oak trees there, a visual reminder of the stirring story that unfolded when Goliath challenged the mighty men of Israel. Young David, the shepherd, was overcome
- [New Life NOLA](https://jodyleecollins.com/new-life-nola/) - Under Construction Concrete ripped and piled Bulldozed building pieces askew Saltines stacked on a pile of dirt. There is mess everywhere. Plastic flaps outside, tucked in and under, Protecting not much anymore. Piles of rebar readied for foundations Sand, rock for ballast, fill. There is mess everywhere. The glare of lights, warning signs, Ominous fences.
- [Resurrection--What Now?](https://jodyleecollins.com/resurrection-what-now/) - Romans 8:11 King James Version "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." "quicken"--to make alive, to revive or resuscitate, as from death; hence, to excite;
- [How Creation Speaks](https://jodyleecollins.com/pine-cone-pointers/) - I've been looking at pine cones a lot lately. A book I've been reading makes me SEE things differently. Makes me stop and pay attention to what's at my feet, down close. Instead of stepping over, around and on what lies below, I'm starting to take time to notice what I see. When I went for a walk yesterday,
- [Voice Messages](https://jodyleecollins.com/voice-messages/) - "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the LORD directs His love, at night his song is with me-- a prayer to the God of my life." Psalm 42:7&8, NIV Before my husband and I got our new smartphones (which alas,
- [Manna Menu {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/manna-menu/) - Blue Plate Special--Good Today ONLY Get your own bread, Stop grabbing off your sister’s plate And eyeing your brothers’. I gave them just what they need— I’ll do the same for you. “What is it?” “Manna." “What is it?” “Yes.” “but what IS it?” "You’ll just have to taste and see." "So what’s good today?" you ask.
- [Neat Little Package{a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/neat-little-package/) - Hanan Samuel Collins, Age 8 Multnomah Falls, OR I wrote this poem on the January day in 2003 when my first grandson, Hanan Samuel, was born. Your birth today unequivocally proved that science still can do nothing at explaining the miraculous. The day you came into the world the
- [Jumping in with Both Feet](https://jodyleecollins.com/jumping-in-with-both-feet/) - Jan. 23, 2012 Snow day It's not actually a snow day here in the Seattle area. It's a 'recover-from-the-snow-and-ice-and-wind-damage-day,' so there is no school. And, since I'm a teacher, blessed me, there's oodles of extra time from the Time Keeper, my Heavenly Father, to do what He's called me to do--write to you. But first, since
- [First Grade Recess](https://jodyleecollins.com/first-grade-recess/) - I wanna wear rainbow-striped leggings like Carly or a bright pink tutu with Zoe's sparkly shirt. I'd like pigtails or a vivid purple flower clipped in my hair. I'd like to run with abandon hollering after a ball and do a leaping high five when I catch it. I want to jump rope--double-dutch, in fact--
- [Slow Burn {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/slow-burn/) - The safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. -C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters What is it that deals us our greatest blows, that is our undoing? Is it our enemy, the devil? Or blatant evil, so closely cloaked-- 'live’ spelled backwards? Were Satan so
- [Cocooning-{a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/cocooning/) - A shell of protection, this choice I've made To hide away indefinitely until This fragile, silken wall peels Away revealing new life. The barrier is temporary and
- [Summer Snapshot--A Precious Big Deal](https://jodyleecollins.com/summer-snapshot-a-precious-big-deal/) - One of the wonderful things about blogging is being a part of a community of people who know how to share and encourage one another. Several weeks ago Jen Ferguson at Finding Heaven Today,(who also spearheads the Soli Deo Gloria community) had a writing suggestion for a 'Summer Snapshot' series (a very loosely organized series......right here.)
- [True Wood {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/trees/) - Pears thunk and plop on barren, yellow grass alone, uncarried. The tree bore fruit but there is no one to eat thereof. (is it still a tree?) Upraised branches, so much verdant waterspray towards the sky, still and soft against the blue-- but no one to see. (is it still a tree?) Oaken limbs, worn
- [How Does God Love Me? Let me Count the Ways....](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-does-god-love-me-let-me-count-the-ways/) - People often say about God-- as if to disprove His existence-- "How can you belive in Someone you can't see? You can't prove He exists." I beg to differ. I recently wrote about my birthday trip to Southern California here and shared some Very Spiritual Lessons learned. Now, inspired by my friend Nancy Franson (who's birthday
- [Weather Change {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/weather-change/) - birds top right and center....from our deck jlc The chickadees chatter and chirrup "a cheep, cheep chick-a-dee-dee!" bullying for position on the fence post. There's an argument about breakfast and who goes first and "hey, no cuts!" Doesn't matter there's an over-spilling feeder full of seeds-- all the birds are hungry. It's a change-of-weather morning
- [Throw open the Doors](https://jodyleecollins.com/throw-open-the-doors/) - "Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every
- [Garden & Grace](https://jodyleecollins.com/gardens-grace/) - Do you ever feel stingy? I do. Well, I did. Well, I actually noticed that I was feeling that way and thought it out loud. I thought about it as I clomp, clomp, clomped across the newly-sprinklered grass in my rubber boots out to my garden the other morning. I was inwardly exclaiming, amazed at
- [Opportunity](https://jodyleecollins.com/opportunity/) - The Scent of Water** and the ticking of clocks is keeping me awake. the fragrance drawing me to the well of the Word, the Giver offering refreshment for my soul. The time keepers clicking through the dark marking the minutes-- telling me twice, "take of each one" "make of each one" the most that you
- [On Birthdays & Being the Big Sister](https://jodyleecollins.com/wait-is-an-action-word/) - I was so looking forward to 5 days with my sisters and close friends for my birthday, celebrating my big 6-0 in an extraordinary way. I reserved a place at the beach in Southern California, my birthplace. My head was filled with imagining the familiar sights and sounds, the walks on the beach, the fun ahead. I had
- [Watershed](https://jodyleecollins.com/watershed/) - Rain has not fallen on these parched hills for months-- bowl-shaped reservoirs speak of want and emptiness, shrunken camellias stunted in place mark the space formerly known as a garden. The hillsides are brown, a paper bag folded flat. Trees hold leaves, but distressed they are-- hanging on, sending roots deep seeking moisture to live.
- [Crazy Peace](https://jodyleecollins.com/crazy-peace/) - I’m in my son’s backyard with 3 of the Littles….2 ½, 4 ½ and 6. We are trying to beat the heat----in a wading pool the size of well, you know, a wading pool. Twelve inches of water have been splashed down to eight, there is bubble wand residue floating in and among the grassy
- [The Scarlet Cord](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-scarlet-cord/) - There was no faithline, no family promises passed on through prayer. Only a bloodline from Creation's start, scarlet thread bound and wound together, a cord the color of life, made by a Weaver who dyed it red with blood. Woven with the loom of love, a lifeline coming my way~ a cord in the window~
- [Whether System {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/weather-system/) - Texas Sky April 2011 Thunderclouds are roiling on the horizon, stacking up East-wise, threatening to move in-- move in and dump. But they’re whiter than white can be and only so much vapor. I imagine their rumbling high over distant mountains, molecules leaving mess and mayhem, headed this way. But there's no running for
- [Car Talk (or How to NOT write a blasé blog post)](https://jodyleecollins.com/car-talk-or-how-to-not-write-a-blase-blog-post/) - photo by my friend Leah Richardson-- Creative Overflow Chick at the Computer So I'm hopping in my car for the trip over to my brother's house to water the plants and feed the cats (more on that another day) and I'm oh-so-bummed. I hate it that I'm so bummed. But I am. There is a line
- [Door-Opener](https://jodyleecollins.com/door-opener/) - He is the Joy-bringer, filler-upper, healer, rescuer God. From Sunday morning.... You Bring Hope to the Hopeless Hillsong United Oh You bring hope to the hopeless And light to those in the darkness And death to life Now I'm alive Oh You give peace to the restless And joy to homes that are broken I
- [Anniversary {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/anniversary-a-poem/) - I always come home to you, Your smile, your arms, your lips. Strong as the anchors of a ship, Tethering my wandering, wondering heart. There is a safety in our past, Landmarks of history, Reminding me why I’m here A
- [Avian Chorus {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/avian-worship/) - This shady place, shrouded in quiet and the shushing of trees... this cathedral of water-sounds borne on leaves. Here is worship-- in the wind-- bending carillon chimes blowing clouds, leaving blue. I hear birdsong as they raise their voices in praise. Echoing, answering-- "Do you hear Him? Is He not wonderful, our Creator God?" I
- [Being Seen & Known](https://jodyleecollins.com/being-seen-and-known/) - Isn't it funny how, when you write something down or declare it out loud as a "here's what God told me", that well, He'll make sure you have a chance to practice what you just said? Last week, I schlepped through the rain, dodging puddles on my way across the parking lot, as I headed
- [Leave This Land and Go!](https://jodyleecollins.com/leave-this-land-and-go/) - Cascade Mountains, Eastern horizon, Washington My friend Debbie and I were talking about downsizing the other day. Our husbands and we are all around the same age--60-ish--and the seasons of our life are definitely changing. It's time to spend with grandkids, time to care for aging parents, deal with retirement, employment changes. Income changes. And did
- [Whethering the Weather](https://jodyleecollins.com/whethering-the-weather/) - Elliott Bay, Seattle LM Johnson--Used by Permission I glanced out the window last week and thought to myself, How will I know what to wear to school today if I don't look at the weather? An important question, given this is the Pacific Northwest and the weather is painfully, annoyingly, precociously changing all the time. Then
- [The Redemption of my Family](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-redemption-of-my-family/) - "We love Him because He first loved us."—1 John 4:19. Charles Spurgeon (Morning by Morning--June 11th) "This must ever be a great and certain truth, that we love Him for no other reason than because He first loved us. Our love to Him is the fair offspring of His love to us. How great the
- [With apologies to Wm Carlos Williams](https://jodyleecollins.com/with-apologies-to-wm-carlos-williams/) - This is just to say we could not eat the plums-- they were so many pyramided together in plastic, hailing from casa de Costco where everything is sold in bulk. We could not eat the plums. unripe as they were-- purple/black skins yielding to (very) firm yellow (oh! not sweet) flesh. We enlisted children, yea
- [Spring reign](https://jodyleecollins.com/spring-reign/) - The warm spring rain persisted Like the need for prayer, insisted I arise. A call to care, regardless of the hour, When time knows no limits, And love requires me to listen! Whose heart’s cry do I hear? My own—involved, consumed? Aware of the power, if I ask, for The Father’s hand to reach
- [Rushing Wind, Blow Through this Temple](https://jodyleecollins.com/rushing-wind/) - The 'shuff, shuff, scritch' of my sneakers against the damp leaves interrupts the sound of quiet on this woodsy walk. A flicker's cry breaks in high above while I step over the dank patterned tree life at my feet. The path before me is almost entirely covered in debris revealing just the smallest glimmers of emerald
- [He's Got the Whole World in His Hands](https://jodyleecollins.com/hes-got-the-whole-world-in-his-hands/) - Pre -storm sunset, Elliott Bay, Seattle. L.M. Johnson (my daughter) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Just thinking about the power and fury of the storm that has affected the Eastern part of the country....we are so small. God is so not. May we look to Him in the days to come.
- [Playing Dress Up-Putting on Christ](https://jodyleecollins.com/playing-dress-up/) - My grandchildren Abigail and Paul, ages 5 and 3, are inseparable playmates. Abigail most of the time wants to play some kind of Princess pretend--Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty--and Paul is very often decked out as a Princess as well. He is a good sport about dressing up. They take turns playing damsel in distress
- [Love and Marriage](https://jodyleecollins.com/love-and-marriage/) - "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. (but) A cord of three strands is not easily broken." Ecclesiastes 4:12 NIV ~~~~~~~ Here's to the third cord, our Saviour, and to the twining of the two- my lovely daughter Leah and her husband William--held by Him. Happy 6th Anniversary! linking with Deidra and the Sunday Community
- [Strong Trees-A Marriage Poem](https://jodyleecollins.com/strong-trees/) - Josh Groban is heavenly hollering "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." The sweet and gentle resolution of the violin and oboes slows me down to hear your soft love. Not the out loud from the rooftops kind, but quiet as the roots of a tree digging down in the dark, seeking support where we need it.
- [Hunting for Red in October](https://jodyleecollins.com/hunting-for-red-in-october/) - Red in the blueberries, bidding farewell to the season Red on my table, my plate, and in a bowl (a bounty of tomatoes--all shapes and sizes) The red Cardinal Flower, last blooms in the garden Red near the park as the maples mark the cooler days And the best red I've read
- [In the God Seasons](https://jodyleecollins.com/in-the-god-seasons/) - I glance up from my desk at the Infographic I drew last year. It’s taped to the pencil holder. “One Year with God”I wrote across the top. The months are drawn in small squares around a hub like spokes in a wheel, a cycle of moments, days, weeks all adding up to a
- [Give Us, Keep Us](https://jodyleecollins.com/give-us-keep-us/) - Keep us, Lord, hungry for truer things. Keep us thirsty for life your living water brings. Keep us searching for You, the Spring. Keep us wanting to worship You, our King. Give us ears that sense Your voice, Eyes to see beyond the noise Hands that serve and choose to rejoice
- [Names Matter](https://jodyleecollins.com/he-calls-us-by-name/) - "Nana, do you have any kids?" I am wedged on the couch between Abigail, 4 1/2 and Paul Silas, 2 1/2. We are reading a bedtime story. ‘Goodnight Moon’, no doubt; it is always ‘Goodnight Moon.’ “Well, Abi, I have two kids. One is your Auntie Leah and the other is your Papa.” “Oh.”
- [Planting Prayers](https://jodyleecollins.com/planting-prayers/) - Scattered seeds, scattered me strewn across the landscape like the leftovers of an exploded fruit. Full of me, I dropped the pieces here and there along the way without the time to STOP and listen. Father, retrieve my prayers. Draw around them the frame of your love.
- [When a Word is More Than a Word](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-a-word-is-more-than-a-word/) - The Pastor has obviously been reading my mail. This morning he continued the sermon series he started last week on the Gospel of John. We got through exactly 5 verses. "We probably won't finish until Jesus comes back," he quipped. Why? Well, we got stuck on The Word. The verse that says, "In the beginning
- [#whyisitcalledahashtag {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/iamveryconfused/) - #whyisitcalled a hashtag? and not a number sign as in "#3"? (or n-o period 3?) For that matter, why is it a "pound sign"? (as in "Please enter your password, followed by the pound sign?" (my son did not weigh 7#'s 3 oz. it was lbs., thank you.) You're calling it a hashtag for tweeters
- [Looking for Life in the Garden](https://jodyleecollins.com/looking-for-life-in-the-garden/) - There is no flower on the zucchini--I guess there will be no more fruit. It is time to put the garden to bed, as Margaret says. Fruit only comes in the right season and we are not to be always producing. there is stillness, rest, tearing out, covering up (mulch helps). There is quiet, it
- [Atticus to Zeppelin](https://jodyleecollins.com/atticus-to-zeppelin/) - Classroom photo, mine. 2012 "Recess teacher!!" That would be me and anyone else over 3 feet tall who has a whistle. "Hey guys, just so you know, my name's Mrs. Collins", flashing my cartoon-y fish logo with my fancy-ish name. "What're your names?" "I'm Atticus, this is Zeppelin." "Well, those are some pretty big names," I
- [Truer Gifts](https://jodyleecollins.com/truer-gifts/) - Twelve minutes after two the blinking red face confirms as I waken wondering, why? I was so very tired and now I am N O T. the pulsing numbers push me back—a book, a bowl of cereal, a bending black case with another glowing face and I click and read, peruse the people saying something I
- [Watching Hanan See the World {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/slow-down/) - Spider, bug, Ant and bee In my garden, At my knee. Provide a show For this young one, Eyes tuned tight In midday sun. He alone can see them move We pass so fast his dawdling proves Were we more still We’d find delight In this wee world Through child's sight. Just a
- [Missing Peace](https://jodyleecollins.com/missing-peace/) - Sometimes I don't know which direction I'm going until I get in the car and drive....... Sometimes I don't know what's on my heart until I start to write. sometimes I don't know what's on my mind until I open my mouth and speak and my Father gives the words. Sometimes I don't know what
- [Living in Him](https://jodyleecollins.com/living-in-him/) - My friend Suzie's 'shed' Auburn WA Found this verse and thought about my word for the year--Dwell--had to share. Smile. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.” Hebrews 3:6 NIV
- [The Waiting Season](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-waiting-season/)
- [Putting it Together](https://jodyleecollins.com/having-a-fit/) - Our dining room is topsy turvy. Kitchen chairs and barstools are hidden and stashed in a closet in the bedroom. There's no room for but four people at our dining table. The living room bookshelves now attend the table, stacked on their sides and emptied, banana boxes stuffed with the contents. Pieces of furniture
- [Soul Sisters](https://jodyleecollins.com/soul-sisters/) - These are my thoughts about an honorary member of my birth family, my just-like-a-sister Sandy. Forty years ago this week she dared me into going to church--Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California. It was the height of the 'Jesus Movement' of the 70's and Sandy had been hounding me to go and give my life to
- [King David and Computer Keys](https://jodyleecollins.com/king-david-and-computer-keys/) - Several weeks ago I made a foolish, self-centered comment on someone's blog and clicked back a few days later to see if there was a response. When I re-read what I wrote, I sighed at my words and simply hit 'Delete'. I felt SO relieved. Then I wrote this: Thank God for the "Delete" button
- [What Students Can Teach Us--Poetry at Work](https://jodyleecollins.com/what-students-can-teach-us-poetry-at-work/) - We have a mandate to leave no child behind, Yet we are educating children not left behind, But left to die, escaping with their families and their lives, The clothes on their backs and a lifetime of images they want to forget. So we attempt to educate them-- ‘educate’from the Latin-‘to lead out’ Lead
- ["Booked"--Karen Swallow Prior](https://jodyleecollins.com/an-open-letter-to-karen-swallow-prior/) - I first met (via words, of course) Professor Karen Swallow Prior through her coming of age book of essays, titled simply Booked (T.S. Poetry Press, 2012) . I related to so much of what she said about the way literature shaped her life growing up and eventually the way books led her to God. I
- [My Word for the Year--FIT](https://jodyleecollins.com/my-word-for-the-year-fit/) - (And I don't mean exercise. Well, maybe...) Each year that I've been keeping a journal and spending time with God I've heard him speak a theme into my life. Last year that word/theme was 'Dwell.' All throughout my quiet time and my reading the word came up in some form or another--WAIT, REST, BE STILL,
- [He Will Feed You Too](https://jodyleecollins.com/he-will-feed-you-too/) - The other morning I was lamenting to the Lord-- accounting to Him the dearth of any time set aside to feed myself-- emotionally, mentally, spiritually-- (forgetting that He already knows) and glanced out the window at the birds. (not these birds.......this is snow from a few years back...) but birds ignoring the rain, balancing
- [The Blacksmith](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-blacksmith/) - I couldn't help thinking this week about how God has been driving home my out loud confession of wanting to 'dwell' in Him this year. "Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell." Psalm 43:3 Yes, He's been
- [Remembering](https://jodyleecollins.com/remembering/) - "God is sheer mercy and grace; not easily angered, he’s rich in love. He doesn’t endlessly nag and scold, nor hold grudges forever. He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs. As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is his love
- [Hand Made {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/crucible/) - I bend to be formed, not torn or broken but tempered by heat, a fire so hot the white is all You see of me. I said change and grow and I’m bent so low this shape of me is melting brass forged by tools so strong I fear the breaking. But I’m bound to
- [Taking Steps](https://jodyleecollins.com/taking-steps/) - "He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant." Psalm 25: 9, 10 ~~~~~~ Linking with Deidra and the Sunday Community My friend Holly took this photo one morning when we out
- [Eden DNA](https://jodyleecollins.com/eden-dna/) - We were made for Eden dwellers with God in his greenglory and goodness among the vining wonder and fragrant trees. We came from dirt creation, witness to his filling of this face of the earth with his endless imagination named "witch hazel" "flowering quince" "red currant" "sweetbox." He charged us as caretakers of His Garden, resident
- [Cleaning the Living Room (a #poem)](https://jodyleecollins.com/cleaning-the-living-room/) - Dust hovers unsettled in sunlight, threatening to land on patterned grains of tables at rest. I observe the suspension of noise, remember the activity: buzzing, rising, howling, softening. The children are gone. It is time to put things in order. Restack the books, ensconce the trinkets to their pride of place, lay out the careful
- [A very clean 2013](https://jodyleecollins.com/a-very-clean-2013/) - Well, it seems that way anyway. Clean and all. Open, blank, unwritten on. And the smashing white/blue sky is limitless today. How unlike our skies to be that way this day. But it is (a gift! Thank you, God.) SO, making the most of a Beautiful Good Thing I will do what any ordinary human
- [Carrying the Weight-For Sandy Hook](https://jodyleecollins.com/carrying-the-weight/) - The tonnage of this load exceeds all legal limits; the bridge cannot be crossed. Its crushing weight of granite grief will split the spans and send you spiraling down. Unless (and I am no engineer) the load is properly distributed on this barren, buckling asphalt, heaving under the pressures of your shattered, tear-stained hearts. We
- [Can a cup of Coffee Change the World?](https://jodyleecollins.com/can-a-cup-of-coffee-change-the-world/) - Smiling with Glenda at Panera When I began blogging a year ago last January I was not prepared for the kindness exchanged, the encouragement offered and the connection I would make with likeminded writers of faith. I found a remarkable thing this past week when I met one of my 'imaginary' (virtual) friends for a
- [God's Law is His Love](https://jodyleecollins.com/scripture-weekend/) - "That God cares enough about us to desire to regulate the details of our lives, is the strongest proof of love He could give; and that He should condescend to tell us all about it, and to let us know just how to live and walk so as perfectly to please Him, seems almost
- [Good News (Really)](https://jodyleecollins.com/good-news-really/) - I woke up this morning singing 'Beautiful Things' by Gungor. We sang it for the first time in church yesterday and I remember asking God to use me to help people who are in chaos and pain, to rescue people who are lost, to speak truth to those who are broken. Little did I know.
- [April 15th (Just for Fun)](https://jodyleecollins.com/april-15th-just-for-fun/) - Vashon Hardware, Vashon Island, WA Rudyard Kipling begins his classic "If" poem, urging me to keep my head when all about me are losing theirs, and I'm certain my head--and its grey matter contents-- will soon explode for the sums and ciphers impinging on the brain space I. do. not. have. This is a necessary
- [Religion Stinks](https://jodyleecollins.com/religion-stinks/) - not mine; from the Seattle P-I....Golden Gardens Yeah, I said that. I found this out in a most humbling way. The other night my husband and I were finally catching up with the conclusion of The Bible TV series--the Easter episode--Jesus' trial, crucifixion and resurrection. I was exclaiming throughout the program at the atrociousness of
- [Heavenly Arithmetic](https://jodyleecollins.com/heavenly-arithmetic/) - "David began his arithmetic, in the 14th verse (of Psalm 71) with addition: "I will yet praise Thee more and more"; but he is fairly beaten in this first rule of sacred mathematics. His calculation fails him; the mere enumeration of the Lord's mercies overwhelms his mind; he owns his inadequacy. Reckon either by time,
- [The Power of Love](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-power-of-love/) - W CROSS R D S Lamb. Perfect. Hung. Alone. Naked. For me. Abandoned. Blamed. Spit on. Mocked. Forsaken. For me. Loving. Spotless. Alone. For love. Blood poured out. For me. Broken. Crying. Praying. Dying. A garden beginning, A garden His ending. On a hill he hung for
- [Building Bridges](https://jodyleecollins.com/building-bridges/) - I've been thinking about bridges a lot lately how they're built how they're sustained what they connect what they cross what they cover and I am sure of only this: building the bridge that connects a friendship must be built one strong, sure bolt at a time........ Romans 12 "14 Bless those who persecute you, bless
- [Winter Don't Go Quite Yet](https://jodyleecollins.com/winter-dont-go-quite-yet/) - redtwig dogwood, my yard, renton wa outside in this open sky gratitude falls and I hear: more bird sounds, echoing/answering amidst the branches, waking up to more light. windchimes slight in the breeze, their delicate sound a witness to the wind. I see: a dull palette of varying grays- the distant view so very much
- [In Which I Write like Ann Voskamp](https://jodyleecollins.com/in-which-i-write-like-ann-voskamp/) - Mt. Rainier, WA state, Paradise side I blame her for this. I blame her for these can't-miss tears. These every-time-I-read-her-posts tears, that dry on my skin and keep me choked up, that blow my world apart and make me want to say, 'This does not fit.' This. This world, with its horrors right where I live and merciless children killing their grandparents in my own
- [Early Weekend--Take me Away](https://jodyleecollins.com/early-weekend-take-me-away/) - Stitching together my Sabbaths in chunks of time, because that is all I have in the midst of our current remodeling project, and reading God in the Yard by LL Barkat (TSPoetry Press), I was moved to write this as I sat down outside the other day. Father, thank you that in the midst of
- [Question Everything](https://jodyleecollins.com/question-everything/) - I grew up in Southern California, the land of orange orchards and strawberry fields. I remember well the acres on the corner lot near our elementary school—the Aihara’s place—with row after row of strawberries. I remember two things about my elementary school friend Lynne Aihara—her remarkably beautiful handwriting and sifting rice. When I was invited
- [Words & Music--Across the Kitchen Table VLog](https://jodyleecollins.com/words-music-across-the-kitchen-table-vlog/) - It's that time again--first Monday of the month--unedited, unscripted Sister Time for Soli Deo Gloria, whose tagline is "Inspiring women just to keep it real." Here's my 6 minutes' worth of 'real', talking about what's sitting in the pile of mail on my kitchen counter....precious words and precious music. Here's the link in case
- [Monday Morning Prayer](https://jodyleecollins.com/monday-morning-prayer/) - I was thinking, Father, yesterday in worship, with my hands upraised in prayer and thanks, how like a container I've been this week. Empty, needing to be filled, a hollowed out space hollering for help. I've been stuck, stagnant, stewing by myself drowning in unmoving water. And you showed me, Lord, how like a
- [Building Freedom](https://jodyleecollins.com/building-freedom/) - At the end of the road near our church is a county sign announcing the imminent construction of two more cell towers to accompany those already standing there in the woods. As I drove home after church I thought, "Why do we need four cell phone towers? There must be a lot of communicating going
- [Heart Work](https://jodyleecollins.com/heart-work/) - Lovely Lydia dipped cloth in indigo dye, dressing royalty in the Kingly color of the day. I am wrapped today in color of another hue~ scarlet red~ covering me in impossibly laundered linens purchased by the Savior King who died descending into darkness, bursting forth in a blaze of Color That is Not-- Purest White.
- [Roller Derby](https://jodyleecollins.com/roller-derby/) - I fell flat--face firstDown on the groundHard.Stopped short, mid-strideChatting as I rolledAround the corner.(Why I’ll show these young people a thing or two.)All I wanted to do was Join in the fun—Ah, Family Skate Night.Fellowship with the saints,Be salt and light,Share the joy.I didn’t exactly want to lay my life down—Well, not quite like that.Yet
- [No Telling--A Photo Essay](https://jodyleecollins.com/no-telling-a-photo-essay/) - Garden going in day May 2013 I feel bad about my cucumbers. Truly. They are my favorites--lemon cukes--so called because of their shape (round) their color(yellow) and their size (small). This year I have planted them three times. THREE. First time was a seedling--I know, cheating--but it was necessary jumpstart in my book. It was
- [Surrender {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/thirsty/) - My husband and I recently spent some time away for our anniversary and I discovered that in confined quarters--our all in one room on the island--it's hard to find personal space. My husband's solution? To not having to listen to me all the time? Turn off his hearing aids. Smile. It made me think about
- [What's Eating You? No, Really.](https://jodyleecollins.com/whats-eating-you/) - My neck is killing me. (The lavender-laced, rice-filled warming thingy helps a bit. ) My massage therapist says my neck muscles are so strained from being in this position they have ridges in them. Ridges? That cannot be good. Protocol dictates I come see her once a week for the next six weeks. I'm grateful
- [More Free than a Flag in the Breeze](https://jodyleecollins.com/more-free-than-a-flag-in-the-breeze/) - I could be a parade marching or a flag waving or a barbecue grilling but what I really am is FREE because of the Son
- [Summertime](https://jodyleecollins.com/summertime/) - Summertime is either noisy busy, with houses full of now-at-home children and the moms who want to make the most of the days, or, well....just plain busy. God is in all of it--the kidsounds and joy--and in the quiet, when we can coax it out of our day. Here are some shhhhhh.....thoughts for finding the
- [Not in My City-Sex Slave Trafficking](https://jodyleecollins.com/not-in-my-city/) - When I started writing online in January 2012 I christened my website Three Way Light. I chose it because light has three properties: it warms cold places, reveals what is hidden, and shines and reflects on what is seen. Processing the world through words gives me a chance to do that--pour a little light on
- [Jesus Blows My Mind](https://jodyleecollins.com/jesus-blows-my-mind/) - I grew up in Southern California, in the 'shadow' of Disneyland. My husband's uncle owned a home on the street behind the Park and we often sat on the hoods of our cars and watched the fireworks over the trees. They appeared at 9:00 on the dot every night in the summer. Some things
- [Celebration](https://jodyleecollins.com/celebration/) - The light is too bright, hollering, “pay attention!” as it shouts from the sky across the clouds. The evening kidsounds beckon and burst across the air saying, “come out and play”, and night birds dining on dusky bug meals chatter in their bickering, “feed me! feed me!” Quiet is hard to find on these long-lighted
- [Sabbath on the Page #2](https://jodyleecollins.com/sabbath-on-the-page-2/) - Three more days of school. It is nonstop season--parties, graduations, showers, weddings. Noisy celebration time and a 'come out and play' summer ahead. Fireworks and family on the horizon. Mini trips to the beach, anniversaries and relatives visiting. The words all say 'busy' to me and I'm wondering how I'll ever find time for the
- [Songs/Life](https://jodyleecollins.com/songslife/) - My brothers are strumming their guitars in my sister's living room and I'm thinking of the miracle of it all, how our mother loved to sing and each of these men taught themselves to play beautiful music because of that gift and their love for words and song. The miracle is I'm here to witness
- [Happy Happy Joy Joy](https://jodyleecollins.com/happy-happy-joy-joy/) - We've returned from our warp speed visit to be with my family in Southern California for my nephew's wedding. It was a magical, storybook event from start to finish. I could share 161 pictures with you, but perhaps that would mess up my bandwidth or something. Smile. Here are two photos--one of the wedding party--lovely
- [Journeying--The Romance of the Daily](https://jodyleecollins.com/journeying-the-romance-of-the-daily/) - Today I travel to Southern California for the wedding of the decade. Well, for my family, it's the wedding of the decade. I am the oldest of 5 children and the last time my brothers and sisters and I were together with our spouses was 1999. My sister L's only son is
- [Resting on the Wind](https://jodyleecollins.com/resting-on-the-wind/) - I sit outside on the deck in my spot where I hear better and I see an eagle in the distant sky (not these. smile.) He's floating, soaring, up, up and up... He seldom flaps his wings, gently resting on invisible currents of air, shifting directions by a slight tilt
- [Promises Kept](https://jodyleecollins.com/promises-kept/) - SO grateful for His Word today. Amen. ~~~~~~~~~
- [Throw Down your Oars and Surrender](https://jodyleecollins.com/throw-down-your-oars-and-surrender/) - Cedar River-Renton WA, outside my daughter's first apartment I've been a little preoccupied (okay, a LOT preoccupied) with finding a new teaching position for next year. I've felt a stirring to do so, confident (mostly) it's the right thing to do, but now I'm in the hard part--trusting God to help me. I'd much
- [Small Oceans](https://jodyleecollins.com/small-oceans/) - Redondo Beach, CA I was about 6 I went looking for a photo today, one that's embedded in memory from happy times at the beach. When I found this essay I couldn't help notice God's continual message to me--He is always speaking, and the word I've been hearing him whisper these days is "Trust." Six
- [Contemplation](https://jodyleecollins.com/contemplation/) - This post is fifth in a sporadic series on a book I'm reading that is changing my life: God in the Yard Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us by L.L Barkat. This is not a book review, per se, but perhaps a book invitation... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I've 'marked out a temple' (L.L. said that's one meaning of
- [The Dance](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-dance/) - "...... to believe that hiddenness is part of presence. I know that some say Sabbath is just about God, that it's not about resting up to be more productive, that it should not mean "nowhere goes somewhere" because we shouldn't be so focused on the "somewheres." But I believe that's exactly
- [Paying Attention](https://jodyleecollins.com/paying-attention/) - This post is third in a sporadic series on a book I'm reading that is changing my life: "God in the Yard", by LL Barkat. This is not a book review, per se, but perhaps a book invitation...The author writes early on 'smallness permits attention,' and I am starting small, stitching together my Sabbath times, sitting
- [Sabbathing-An Invitation](https://jodyleecollins.com/sabbathing/) - This post is part of a sporadic series on a book I'm reading that is changing my life: God in the Yard, by LL Barkat. I will post my discoveries as I process them. This is not a book review, per se, but perhaps a book invitation... ~~~~~~~~~~ I watch the clouds drift by
- [A Book About Spiritual Practices-For "The Rest of Us"](https://jodyleecollins.com/a-book-about-spiritual-practices-for-the-rest-of-us/) - This post was originally written in January 2013 and I have attempted several times to edit the piece to reflect some newer thoughts and recollections. Along the way the tenses have become a bit jumbled mixing past and present tense. I hope you'll be able to navigate my thoughts. In January of 2013, I ordered
- [Fit (When things don't)](https://jodyleecollins.com/fit-when-things-dont/) - I wrote this prayer in January when God gave me 'Fit' as my word for the year. I'm editing it here as life has changed since then, refined, more focused on what God may be doing. "Father, we give you all the pieces of our lives, rounded, jagged, not fitting together. We place the ideas,
- [Cacophony {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/cacophony/) - The chickadees are arguing using their mad voices to fight over the millet and sunflowers-- Here's a sweet 'chirp', there's an insistent, "cuh, cuh, cuh" and another voice--"chick-a-dee, dee, dee." It's a Bird Boardroom Brawl, voices of different timbres and tempo arguing about what's on the menu. They sound as if they're starving, staking out
- [Kaleidoscope {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/what-i-saw-in-the-dark/) - Across the dining room chairs over the lamp and past the plants through the window, I spy silhouettes that awaken and dance like the pebbled stones in a child's kaleidoscope, shape-shifting black against the not quite white night sky. Here the leaves move, there they bend and turn branches like sky-borne seaweed in an ocean
- [Timekeepers {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/timekeepers/) - Six o’clock sounds say ‘hurry home’ in the rush and whoosh of tires sliding through the rain soaked street. The tick, click, tick of the clock confirms the dinner hour while a bird through the window with his “cheerup, cheerup, cheer!” reminds any and all listeners that evening is approaching. The electronic hmmzzzzzzzz…. of the
- [Pressed into Joy](https://jodyleecollins.com/pressed-into-joy/) - Golden oil in a bottle liquid light refracting sun in shimmers a mirrored shape reflects on the surface and I wonder at the drop, drop, drops of light as they drip, drip, drip down. All this tasting joyfulness because something was crushed and pressed, leaving light.
- [Words at Dusk](https://jodyleecollins.com/dusk/) - the lights have left the leaves, golden brilliance turned out like a glowing candle quieted by the wind. the leaves float and rustle, voices, too, carried by the breeze to this place atop a hill-- a slanted receptacle for sound forcing it upwards to my ears. I'm hidden--He's not. I hear Him. He's here.
- [Making Time, Taking Time](https://jodyleecollins.com/making-time-taking-time/) - "I don't have time for that.""I don't have enough time.""I'm out of time.""This is not a good time for me."Oh--anyone else use statements like that?For the last few months I've had a default conversational setting, "You think you're swamped? Well, top this."The holiday season adds to the intensity...time is a precious, precious commodity.My 'can you
- [Thanksliving](https://jodyleecollins.com/thanksliving/)
- [Giving Thanks in All Things](https://jodyleecollins.com/giving-thanks-in-all-things/) - "Believe He is faithful, not because you feel it, or see it, but because He says He is. Believe it, whether you feel it or not. Believe it, even when it seems to you that you are believing something that is absolutely untrue. Believe it actively. Believe it persistently. Cultivate a continuous habit of
- [It is well with my soul](https://jodyleecollins.com/it-is-well-with-my-soul/) - Just that.....He's digging deep. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Linking with Emily and the redeemed ones at Imperfect Prose Thursday photo by the author--windmill, Jones Estate, Orange CA
- [With Apologies to Laura Numeroff**](https://jodyleecollins.com/with-apologies-to-laura-numeroff/) - If you give a writer a journal She’ll probably say “thank you” (exclamation point) And wonder where the nearest pen or pencil is. If she finds said pen, she’ll take to writing A es a pee. Once she starts writing there’s no telling When she’ll stop—why THINGS COULD HAPPEN. People would be
- [Hunting for Red in October, Second Edition](https://jodyleecollins.com/hunting-for-red-in-october-second-edition/) - There is no more beautiful place to live this time of year (IMHO) than the Pacific Northwest. Last year I posted 'hunting for red....' Again, I'd like to share some of the beautiful Fall colors my Father has painted for us........ Maple tree next door blueberry bush--end of season Cotoneaster berries a stand of maples
- [Props](https://jodyleecollins.com/props/) - The brace is there right next to my bed, the last thing I take off at night and the first thing I put on in the morning. It bothers me that I need it. I don't like being reminded of my weakness. I slip my left thumb into the hard plastic support. With the extra
- [Feet of Faith](https://jodyleecollins.com/feet-of-faith/) - photo by Leah M. Johnson My daughter and I are at Seattle Center on the bright kind of fall day that makes colors pop, where the air feels soft and people are quiet as the rustling leaves. After a walk around the fountain, through the garden past the Chihuly glass and along the Pavilion, we're
- [Sabbath on the Page #3](https://jodyleecollins.com/sabbath-on-the-page-3/) - These entries are a sporadic series of posts in response to a remarkable book that I read and journaled through in 2013--"God in the Yard" by LL Barkat. It is about slowing and seeing and Sabbath. You can order it here. ~~~~~~~~~~~ I am getting better at listening to that still, small Sunday voice that
- [Sabbath Equation in the Garden](https://jodyleecollins.com/sabbath-equation/) - my perennial bed I drag my green plastic chair across the lawn out to the garden. The orange bucket is upended and covered with an old towel--my 'end table.' I place my fresh cup of warm coffee on top and settle in with my camera over my shoulder. I am waiting for the hummingbird. I've
- [On Starbuck's Time](https://jodyleecollins.com/on-starbucks-time/) - Ten minutes before two in the afternoon, I’m sitting at my desk with a sigh of, “Ahhhhh…,” hands folded in prayer. I am in my happy place. My heart is full, my spirit content and the words of praise only God understands pour from my lips. It is so good to have this me-and-God
- [Summer Snapshot-A Photo Essay](https://jodyleecollins.com/summer-snapshot/) - I've not been very up close and personal with the family scrapbook-like sharing here in this space. But since Jennifer Finding Heaven Ferguson asked......well, here's how I was refreshed last weekend. And praise Jesus it came just in the nick of time--it's been a challenging summer. Forthwith The Collins Family Swimming and Burger King Adventure (with
- [His Matchless Unbroken Companionship](https://jodyleecollins.com/his-matchless-unbroken-companionship/) - Isaiah 30:15-18 Amplified Bible 15 For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: In returning [to Me] and resting [in Me] you shall be saved; in quietness and in [trusting] confidence shall be your strength. I've read those verses in more than one place this week. Quoted them, prayed them over people, shared
- [A Brand New "new"](https://jodyleecollins.com/a-brand-new-new/) - Sometimes, finding growth in your life takes some digging. Or just looking closely. I've been feeling a little discontent in my spirit the last few months, lamenting that I just don't 'feel' God like I used to. I'm a pretty emotional person and I tend to judge whether God is moving based on
- [Feasting](https://jodyleecollins.com/feasting/) - Bread and fish made the shopping list-- easily secured at the corner grocery store, exchanged for coins in my pocketbook. But what of the bread and fish the Saviour has~~ a small amount, yet multiplied miracles at his hand, sending the food away to the multitudes? No coins exchanged, no energy consumed in the getting,
- ["What the Quake Experts Now Know about the Coming Cataclysm"](https://jodyleecollins.com/what-the-quake-experts-now-know-about-the-coming-cataclysm/) - Ah, there's the rub, eh? The hubris of the know-it-all mind that deludes itself into thinking "if one knows, why one can manage" and if we were all experts life as we know it wouldn't quite creep up on us with such malicious surprise. Raindrops are nicely contained in a new copper rain gutter but
- [On the Night Before the First Day of School](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-week-before-school/) - I'm awake behind closed eyes noting the whooshing sounds of far away freeway noise (at 2 in the morning? seriously?) and a howling, train-whistly cry rises in the distance through my open night window. The coyotes are stirring, too. The Psalmist David writes of being awake through the watches of the night and I wonder
- [Weaving my Days {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/weaving-my-days/) - If I was inside not here--away-- I'd miss the rickety sounding chip, chip, chip of the cautious squirrel feasting on my deck. I'd be still and safe and sure of my surroundings but could never feel this lacy, lingering, gentle breeze lilting along the leaves of the trees. My eyes would rest on the all
- [Jesus, That Impossible Name](https://jodyleecollins.com/jesus-that-impossible-name/) - You've heard of the movie "The Incredibles", right? The 2004 Disney animated film about an unlikely undercover family who thwart evil and save the world by doing the impossible? (I mean seriously, those uber-stretchy arms the Mom has? Now THAT'S impossible.) We were in the middle of worship recently, hands raised, singing these lines, "All
- [This is Love](https://jodyleecollins.com/this-is-love/) - Sometimes I have a hard time with.......... and wish I was better at just doing THIS but then I remember His "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love:
- [Anchor--Part 2](https://jodyleecollins.com/anchor-part-2/) - "When Darkness seems to hide His face I rest on His unchanging grace In every high and stormy gale My anchor holds within the veil My anchor holds within the veil" ~~~~~~~ Hillsong Live 2012--'Cornerstone' Praising God for his holding power, holding me, holding our family through the rough seas and
- [BEHOLD](https://jodyleecollins.com/behold/) - Isaiah 55:8,9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." ~~~~~~~ Linking with Jen and the Soli Deo Gloria sisters; also the blessed community
- [Words with Friends or How Messaging Saved Our Lives](https://jodyleecollins.com/words-with-friends-or-how-messaging-saved-our-lives/) - I wrote in this space a few weeks ago about my precious daughter and the complications she was having with her first pregnancy. After many hard weeks and doctor visits, specialists weighing in with good news and bad, Jesus saw fit to take the baby boy home. Thursday we have a service to remember
- [Sex in the City](https://jodyleecollins.com/sex-in-the-city/) - I move gingerly down the front steps as the gray day is waning. A glance at my watch shows 10 of 5. "Thank you, God," I mutter, "there's still enough daylight outside for a walk." Soon it will be dark. It's already dark on the other coast in New Jersey/New York, literally and figuratively.
- [Live Birth](https://jodyleecollins.com/live-birth/) - Light dapples on walls, gray/white ripples in shadows behind her. Classical piano notes sound behind me as I gaze over her brown hair through the windows to the trees outside. My mind goes back to another sun and shadow scene, she on the floor with her four year old toys, daylight streaming through
- [Hey, Thirsty Ones!](https://jodyleecollins.com/hey-thirsty-ones/) - How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.... When Ann Voskamp said in this post "Is Jesus merely useful to you — or is He ultimately beautiful to you?" I thought, "Yes!" that's why I want to have God's word written on my heart-- because He is beauty. He is desirable. He
- [Pottery/Poetry {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/pottery-poetry/) - heart potato from my garden, 2020 Potent works of art we are molded by God, thrown on the wheel, mud at his mercy. Shaped and used as He wills, fired in this earthly kiln-- refined, His glory glazes. Empty vessels, He fills us, to water others with love, slaking their thirst. Sometimes we leak through
- [Pink Dawn Do Over](https://jodyleecollins.com/pink-dawn/) - This viburnum blooms every year in my yard in January. That's the main reason I bought it--to have some color (and fragrance) in the dead of winter. I live in the Pacific Northwest and we have our seasons. I'll say. But there's something else about January--the declaration of the joy of a new start. A
- [The World Awaits You](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-world-awaits-you/) - Ecclesiastes 3:11 (KJV) 11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world** in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." **from the Hebrew, 'olam'--"concealed, i.e. the vanishing point, (generally) time out of mind, (practically) eternity continuance, eternal, everlasting,
- [January, Latitude 47](https://jodyleecollins.com/january-latitude-47/) - The wind is washing waves over me, moving birds and branches with a jet engine pushhhhhhh... tumbling, not sand, but sky high sentinels shouting in whispers, not of water but waves on sullen shores of sky far, far from the summer season a world of blue water away.
- [Merchant Eyes](https://jodyleecollins.com/merchant-eyes/) - I stroll in for a 'few' groceries at The Hundred Dollar Store, stopping first for what passes for sustenance (never shop when you're hungry). The bright-eyed toddler tossed in the air before me while parents wait for pizza, kissed by dad, hugged by mom, she slyly smiles, curling into strong shoulders. I push away,
- [Deck Time--When God Reminds You He is More Than Enough](https://jodyleecollins.com/deck-time-when-god-reminds-you-he-is-more-than-enough/) - I know my Heavenly Father is rich. Yeah, yeah. I know. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and all that. I’m a Christian, have been for over 40 years, but wow, you can carry some crazy, mixed up buried kinda feelings into your life with Jesus if you’re not careful. I was sitting
- [My First Job(s)](https://jodyleecollins.com/my-first-jobs/) - NOT me, but my talented, plate juggling sister Laurie, mentioned below Serving is a First Class Business I was born and raised in Southern California, within bicycling and fireworks-watching distance of Disneyland. The summer I was 15-going-on-16, (the oldest of 5 children), my mother became a single parent. It was 1968 and she was barely making ends meet. Way
- [Peter & I, Good Friday {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/peter-and-i-a-good-friday-poem/) - After the garden— The giving away, the giving up The ghastly truth poured out, Words like threadbare sheets Could not cover the lies, I do not know him! Yet He Who Can Be Known Returned for this one, Walking first in The Way Then across the waves, Wooing with words and An outstretched hand, Covering
- [Because I have Nothing to Lose](https://jodyleecollins.com/because-i-have-nothing-to-lose/) - Jesus and I are on an outing the week before Easter. We pull up to the strip mall unbuckling our seatbelts. As we climb out of the car and walk towards the door He remarks, "Oh, a Christian bookstore; let's see what they're selling." We step inside and nearly run into a banner displaying 'Resurrection
- [Smashed to Pieces](https://jodyleecollins.com/smashed-to-pieces/) - I've just finished reading Jennifer Dukes Lee's new book "Love Idol"** and am becoming more aware each day of how I fashion my own not-gods out of man made materials. Last week I wrote and published (for less than 24 hours) a post about World Vision's decision regarding same sex hiring practices. I wanted to add
- [Push Through--Notes from My Journal](https://jodyleecollins.com/push-through-notes-from-my-journal/) - I was sitting outside on the deck last week, writing my 'Sabbath on the Page' (LL Barkat phrase) and thinking about our family's recent journey through a very difficult season. Here are the notes from my journal that day: ~~~~~~~~~~~ Sit outside on the deck in the drips of a dreary day and you might
- [How to Get a Life](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-to-get-a-life/) - Idols I know--those man made (me made?) forms--lifeless, a poor rendering of the real. Not-gods I've erected to take THE God's place. Yes, these I know--overeating, too much chocolate, shopping when I don't need to for clothes I already have. For many, many years in my walk with Jesus I was an expert at
- [A Closet Full of Ping Pong Balls (or How to Survive Five Years in Spec Ed)](https://jodyleecollins.com/a-closetful-of-ping-pong-balls/) - C. is after her purse in the back corner cabinet of the classroom. She's got just a minute to reach for something and turns her head to answer a question, her back to the cupboard. Out comes a cascade of bloodshot eyeball ping pong balls, tumbling to the floor.....oh, it's just another day in Room
- [How to Become like a Child](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-to-become-like-a-child/) - It's the last Sunday of my month to serve in Nursery and I'm hanging out with the Toddlers. I look forward to this chance to see my niece's daughter Pbay (Penelope) and interact with her one on one. If it weren't for Sundays I'd never get to blow bubbles and play on the floor with
- [People Stack](https://jodyleecollins.com/people-stack/) - photo credit* The people over at Tweetspeak Poetry led by the fearless LL Barkat recently engaged in a 'Poem Stack' exercise based on single words from geology, nature and so on. I wanted to try my hand at it; here's what I wrote at church this morning. It's a people stack. ~~~~~~~~~ Yoga pants, striped,
- [The Path {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/journey/) - "I don't know what to do, Lord." Me--buried, brain full of tasks and to do's, worried there's a Right Way to Go. I SO don't want to miss it. As if. As if God had an opinion on closet cleaning versus photo organizing versus gardening or muffin making or Bible reading. As soon as the
- [Overheard at the Writer's Conference](https://jodyleecollins.com/overheard-at-the-writers-conference/) - (for Tania) "We're like lacemakers, a lost art of lovely life going, going, gone. Gone the way of quilting bees and fireside readings of "Gone with the Wind." Gone, like all hope of any kind of spring after this bone-chilling winter." But the earth softens, trumpeting daffodils, splitting crocuses and color comes up, all green
- [I Say, You Say](https://jodyleecollins.com/i-say-you-say/) - A child (surprise!) yours Daughter (ignored) called out one Sister (competing) the apple of your eye Bride (terrified) loved Mother (novice) protected Teacher (trusting)
- [Prayer At My Desk {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/poetry-at-work-at-home/) - There is an altar here-- facing the supply cubbie flanked by the printer (bedecked with Post-it notes), computer at my alternate elbow. Stray crackers sit open next to the pen and paper and glasses, mid-snack, abandoned. Paper, tape, scissors stapler--all adorn this secular cum sacred space. How so? I folded my hands in prayer and
- [Mining the Bright Birds](https://jodyleecollins.com/mining-the-bright-birds/) - " I strain towards the future, eyes focused on the far away past empty, quiet gray, like looking for a hummingbird in the snow. I squint at fine twig lines as they slice across white over green in front of the dormant sienna. I spy her there, a gemstone stately in her royal stance among
- [Book Report {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/book-report/) - All the books that I am reading All the books that I have read Make me feel my brain is bleeding Surely ‘twill explode my head. Now here, now there, now everywhere On floors, on desks and tables. In baskets, piles, in drawers and files I’ve stacked as I am able. I love
- [The Kindness of Strangers {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/stories-help-us-remember/) - "That's what we storytellers do Mrs. Travers. We restore order through imagination. We instill hope again and again and again."
- [The Joy of Waiting](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-joy-of-waiting/) - My husband loves to fly kites. We recently spent four days at the Oregon Coast and he was very much looking forward to getting some 'air time.' Not much you can do, though, if you have no wind. So we just waited. And while we waited we sat in our beach chairs and read
- [The Power of a Simple Question](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-power-of-a-simple-question/) - I had the surprise privilege of teaching a short (four week) Summer School gig for a friend recently--and I do mean privilege. He asked if I could take over his Reading classes at a private Korean Academy. After thanking God for the answer to prayer for meeting a financial need, I then got VERY happy
- [How to Get Around to It](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-to-get-around-to-it/) - Several ideas swirled in my head about what to write this week--sentiments wrapped up in carefully selected words to leave my readers smiling or encouraged or... approving? But I decided to take a chance and just be real about where I'm at--I know my Father is okay with that. I hope you will be, too.
- [The Sound of His Song](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-sound-of-his-song/) - You know how it is when you buy a new car, everywhere you look you see the same exact thing? Well, we haven’t bought a new car, but my sister in law and her husband did. They recently purchased a Nissan ‘Leaf’ and can’t stop singing it’s praises. While they are visiting us for a
- [Forty Reasons Why](https://jodyleecollins.com/forty-reasons-why/) - Downtown Disney, June 2013 It’s July 14th, Bastille Day. If I was French I’d be watching fireworks in my beret from my seat near La Tour Eiffel. But alas, I am in Seattle in the US of A and my July 14thlooks quite different. My husband and I are celebrating our anniversary and I think
- [Surface Questions](https://jodyleecollins.com/surface-questions/) - We’ve been informed we are flying at 29,000 feet (approximately) above the face of the Earth, suspended (how? by speed, lift and whatnot) like a moving planet jettisoned in a line moving at the speed of sound (light?). Refreshments are served, secured with invisible payments traveling via plastic and magnets swiped by staff standing still
- [How Do we Hear in the Noise of Summer?](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-do-we-hear-in-the-noise-of-summer/) - Ten minutes before two in the afternoon, I’m sitting at my desk with a sigh of, “Ahhhhh…,” hands open in prayer. My heart is full, my spirit content and the words of praise only God understands pour from my lips. It is so good to have this me-and-God time. His presence is sweet—I savor it like
- [Abiding in the Word](https://jodyleecollins.com/abiding-in-the-word/) - I am terrible at remembering details. And for most of my life as a believer, I could not recall Scripture verses no matter how I tried, where they were or what they said. I'd go looking for a passage and the 'address' would escape me. I'd mumble, “It’s in the Bible….well, it’s in the Old Testament.
- [His Praise Goes Everywhere](https://jodyleecollins.com/his-praise-goes-everywhere/) - I am honored and humbled to have a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago to be featured at The High Calling this week. I have been part of this faith-based online community for the two plus years that I have been blogging and they are the most supportive and encouraging friends, some of
- [Social Justice-Getting Past the Stone Table](https://jodyleecollins.com/social-justice-getting-past-the-stone-table/) - photo credit In the ending scene of 'The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe', Aslan is tied to the stone table, left to die. As mice furiously chew the ropes that bind him, Lucy and Susan turn away to watch the dawn. Suddenly there is a deafening ‘crack!’ “like
- [Finding our Way in the Dark](https://jodyleecollins.com/finding-our-way-in-the-dark/) - So it’s Sunday morning and the Guest Pastor is wearing a lampshade on his head. (Yeah, that’ll happen when the Senior Pastor is stuck on a plane with the mission team trying to get home from Texas.) The lampshade is one of those ivory-colored, flute shaped (well, upside-down flutes) where the circular opening at the
- [Tethered--a Poem/Prayer](https://jodyleecollins.com/tethered-a-poemprayer/) - Prayer at my desk over pasta reminds me I've been away from this place way too long. This familiar pathway back to this quiet corner with Him-- like a trail worn through the woods towards home or a boat returning to anchor in the harbor. It's this Presence I remember, the sweet rest of
- [Bits and Pieces of Beauty](https://jodyleecollins.com/bits-and-pieces-of-beauty/) - I had the joy of being with 40 of my sisters--and my nieces and my daughter and my sister in law--at our Women's Retreat this weekend. Our Retreat theme was 'Beauty in Imperfection'--a theme that resonated most clearly when we set about taking hundreds of bits and pieces
- [Going There--a Travelogue](https://jodyleecollins.com/going-there-a-travelogue/) - Mt. Rainier August 2011 Soooooo, I had to map my route the other day to find out where our upcoming Women's Retreat is going to be. I'm on the planning team and we all agreed LAST year's directions were none-too-helpful, in fact, several women arrived tired and cranky and ready to (ahem) strangle someone because
- [Why we need to Slow Down](https://jodyleecollins.com/why-we-need-to-slow-down/) - I spent three days last week—Thursday through Sunday—on a trip to Southern Oregon from my home in Seattle. It was a LONG drive over mountains and through valleys, across highways and mountain passes, complete with wind and rain and snow. I took a few photos as I rounded the curves and the corners along the way
- [The Day the Experts Came to School {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-day-the-experts-came-to-school/) - Some days I love being an Elementary Guest Teacher. Some days not so much. Today was one of those days. They are dissecting the stories deciding the children should 'level' their love of literature, as if they could explode the mystery of words and flatten it, equalize the field of flowers that are
- [Drinking {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/drinking/) - I am parched and dry dreaming of rain like a thirsty crop no, not rain: I imagine a downpour, would prefer a drenching a soaking like rum in a bread pudding. Oh, to be drunk on new wine to relish a draught of liquid life, Living Water. Sadly, there is no time to drink so
- [To Be 94 {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/to-be-94/) - I'd sure like a cup of coffee. The grounds go in the top, but where? And here is the glass pitcher 6 cups full of water but I don't remember where to pour it. My mind is like a leaky bucket, a sad sieve that saves less and less these days, an empty, worn-out basket.
- [Flying Lesson](https://jodyleecollins.com/flying-lesson/) - I just saw three chickadees stun themselves, Mama Bird watching from the patio post, hopeful their wings and their wisdom would coincide with the air. They collided instead with the window I see through now, fateful glass a barrier to their flight and freedom impeding the discovery of their birdy selves as creatures made for
- [Food Lesson*](https://jodyleecollins.com/food-lesson/) - No one eats a slice of lemon meringue pie because they're hungry. There's no sustenance in golden brown gelatinous spun sugar. No energy to be gained by consuming a butter-laden yellow middle, no food group that would deem this crust of crumbs worthy of a bite. But I consume anyway, my eyes convincing me I
- [The Waltzing Cat](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-waltzing-cat/) - This poem is inspired by my poetic friend, Tania Runyan, whose volume of poetry 'Second Sky' follows hard after the Apostle Paul's writings. I thought I'd try my hand at a Scripture-prompted poem. The waltzing cat silently slinks between cupboards on concrete and grass. The only sound as he slips is the bronze tag
- [Birdsong](https://jodyleecollins.com/birdsong/) - The noisy birds squawk and squeal, an out of sync chorus bent on harmony as discordant as a traffic jam. In between the garbled avian speech I hear a finch and a robin announce, "It's morning!" In my very vague 4:30 a.m. brain I succumb to the sounds of Creation's alarm clock and I am
- [May 7th, Leschi](https://jodyleecollins.com/may-7th-leschi/) - Ivy's on the corner with her papers and her change.I stop, she chats and I cheer her on As she shares this chapter of her lifeTitled “October through February,”Bringing her to this sunny corner in May.The lines on her face tell a storyLike the layers of life in a beautiful, old treeBelying the hope that
- [Note to Self--Sabbath on the Page #4](https://jodyleecollins.com/note-to-self-sabbath-on-the-page-4/) - More thoughts from my Deck Time, prompted by 'God in the Yard' (Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us)**, an ongoing full stop in the middle of my days. There's a scientific rule, I think, about forward motion--the more intensely and quickly an object is moving, the harder it is to slow down. Something like
- [When the Words Fall Apart](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-the-words-fall-apart/) - The Seattle rain is doing its October thing--pouring, puddling, splattering--and the cold gray world matches my mood. A windstorm blew through last night and fractured one of the oldest trees in town....an apt picture of the chasm created again by the world gone crazy with pain. Three hours north of me last Friday, a high
- [My Faith Heroine {Biana}](https://jodyleecollins.com/extraordinary-woman-unlikely-heroine/) - This blog post is part of Michelle DeRusha’s #MyFaithHeroine contest, in connection with the release of the book 50 Women Every Christian Should Know. Find out how to participate here. ~~~~~~~~ I went into labor with my daughter Leah on a waterbed at my friend Biana’s (bee-onna) house 35 years ago. I was watching the 'Sound of Music' and wanted to
- [Oh, Word of God, How do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways](https://jodyleecollins.com/oh-word-of-god-how-do-i-love-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/) - I love studying God's Word, but I need help. And encouragement. Beth Moore's Bible Studies do that. Our women's group is going through 'Children of the Day' (I and II Thessalonians) right now and the words and Spirit are fresher than they've ever been. This week Beth challenged us to write a letter to a friend,
- [Hunting for Red in October, 3rd Edition](https://jodyleecollins.com/hunting-for-red-in-october-3rd-edition/) - Our summer was VERY long here in the Pacific Northwest and it's been harder to find the beauty of red that I'm used to this time of year...So I really did have to hunt. (You can see my first two 'Hunting for Red' posts here and here.) this plant is called a 'burning bush' plant
- [Shining Light into Dark Places--Porn use in the Church](https://jodyleecollins.com/shining-light-into-dark-places-porn-use-in-the-church/) - Perhaps the greatest tool of the enemy of our souls is to keep our addictions and problems in the dark. Actually, it IS his greatest tool. In Christian circles we have deemed it acceptable to talk about overeating and gluttony--there is Weight Watchers or we can enroll in Jenny Craig. There are support groups for
- ["Let's Go Outside!"--a Playdate with God](https://jodyleecollins.com/lets-go-outside-a-playdate-with-god/) - I'm recuping from a terrible cold and sinus infection, drowsing through the days with a head full of stuffed cotton. Yesterday I started feeling myself again--Today? Well, I'm almost back to normal. Hallelujah! I can go play outside. And it's a beautiful day to play. My friend Laura Boggess coined the phrase 'Playdates with God'
- [On Losing (and finding!) my Wedding Ring](https://jodyleecollins.com/on-losing-and-finding-my-wedding-ring/) - So I misplaced my wedding rings last week. And then I found them. After I stopped looking for them. Of course. Turned around and found them on my little outside table next to my favorite chair, where I'd plopped myself after a long day at school. I hate it when I lose things like that
- [Show and Tell](https://jodyleecollins.com/show-and-tell/) - Write the world a story --one of your very own-- with a beginning like no other. Paint a picture only you can paint with brushes dipped in days and nights of liquid life when it pools and puddles. Illustrate the middle and tell us how it is, with all the color, the light, the dark
- [Thanks Giving](https://jodyleecollins.com/thanks-giving/) - Friends and family leave words on screens and phone lines, dropping voices and laughter like golden pendants rippling across the surface of my morning. Bookends of baking--pies first and the turkey last-- include potatoes, The Green Bean Casserole and sweet potatoes in between. Chimes outside echo on the warm wind of a rare November day,
- [The Traveling Mischief Cafe--Tweetspeak Poetry](https://jodyleecollins.com/poetry-101-mischief-cafe/) - In late fall a few years ago I had the pleasure of hosting the diminuitive L.L. Barkat, a woman with a contagious laugh, a love of poetry and instigator of the Mischief Cafe (among other things.) The Mischief Cafe is sort of a traveling road show with tea, toast and poetry. Laura and I had
- [Timber over Time](https://jodyleecollins.com/timber-over-time/) - Building a marriage is timber over time, the on purpose-ness of candles on the table on a run-of-the-mill Saturday night illuminating the daily gift that says, "I made something for you." It's a pile of firewood carried through the cold, banked against the night's chill. Opera music, loud on the stereo while dinner cools and
- [Waiting Room](https://jodyleecollins.com/waiting-room/) - I wanted to write like Annie Dillard away alone aware-- not here in the middle of this city/suburbs life. Leave the concrete and multiplying cars with their inhuman noises, seek a vista, a vale of color and light, to inspire and bring forth words like a flowing brook across quiet pebbles. But I'm here in
- [An Ode to my Cold](https://jodyleecollins.com/an-ode-to-my-cold/) - My cough appears each hour with the annoying regularity of a political ad. Its persistence is wearing me down. The election is over, the advertisements are gone. No more enduring the monotony of a grating sound I do not want to hear. (did I tell you I have a cough?) I did my part--voted the
- [Female Faith Poet-Barbara Crooker](https://jodyleecollins.com/female-faith-poet-barbara-crooker/) - Barbara Crooker is a quiet soul and a richly talented woman. I first heard Barbara's "voice" via a broadcast of ‘Prairie Home Companion’ when Garrison Keillor read one of her poems. I continued to discover her voice and work as it appeared in various publications, Rock and Sling, Christianity and Literature, The Christian Century, Spiritus, and
- [Sabbath in the In-Between](https://jodyleecollins.com/sabbath-in-the-in-between/) - Many corners of the interwebs are echoing Jesus-followers to be more intentional about pauses in our busy days and find a Sabbath rest. In this season of my life it is more and more difficult to engage in such a practice. However, I woke up the other morning and heard, "find Me in the In-Between",
- [Dew Change](https://jodyleecollins.com/dew-change/) - The thermometer affirms our arrival at Autumn, the droplets on the deck declare in dew that the air is too cold for the water, changing it to liquid on the glassy, warm surface. I wonder, does the Living Water perform the same miracle when it touches my heart? do change....
- [Falling](https://jodyleecollins.com/falling/) - F a l l in g in love
- [What I Saw and Heard](https://jodyleecollins.com/what-i-saw-and-heard/) - Writing comes from listening, so I've taken quiet steps outside away from the loud to hear better. Eyes open this time to see AND hear--this-- the delicate drops of fuchsia, ballerinas fluttering like so many upside-down firecrackers, fragile, full of beauty dropping feathery tendrils to the silent air.
- [Listening, Slowing, Telling and Showing](https://jodyleecollins.com/listening-slowing-telling-and-showing-smallwonder/) - Pictures, pictures everywhere. Anywhere. Any time. If you have a phone, we have a photo. Moments captured and documented, milestones shared, joys multiplied. And while a picture often IS worth a thousand words, and they often tell a story, they don't tell the whole story. The problem with the ubiquitousness (that's a word, right?) of
- [Quiet on the Wind {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-spiritual-discipline-of-listening/) - On the wind His words gently breezing through the pinwheel turning, iridescent blue blowing across the surface moving gently, forcing me to hear, "I'm here" while I ponder slowing-- less turning, more still- like the quiet trees hushing, the soft branches suspended, punctuation placed securely on the pages of the sky, declaring a full stop.
- [When your Feathers are Ruffled](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-your-feathers-are-ruffled-small-wonder-link-up/) - If there's one constant in my life, it's the daily presence of my birdy friends each morning as I stand at the window with my coffee and watch them on my deck. They teach me so much. My husband and I have had our eyes on one dark-eyed junco that's among the busy, hopping crowd
- [Where is Home?](https://jodyleecollins.com/where-is-home/) - My son and his family have moved 5 times in 7 years. Last weekend was the fifth time. I think. A & C have become intimately acquainted with U-Haul trucks and storage units and late nights cleaning burnt ovens and dirty bathrooms. There are five(5!) children to move in this Collins tribe, which is no
- [Discovering Dreams {on #Writing}](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-poetry-of-your-soul-smallwonder-link-up/) - It's only March and my rhubarb is unfurling. In the frozen, snow-covered parts of the country, Spring is only a word on a page somewhere near March 21st, but it has hit full force (early) here in the Pacific Northwest. The rhubarb is pretty lonely. I had grand plans to get some spinach seeds in
- [When we are Named and Known](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-we-are-named-and-known/) - I silently knock on the Kindergarten door, helper for the day in my Assistant Teacher role. I love Kindergarten. I did my student teaching there—sang a LOT of songs and played games and sat on the floor and learned words. Today is one of those days—a learning day—except I am the student. I teach in a very
- [Why Detours are a Good Thing](https://jodyleecollins.com/why-detours-are-a-good-thing-smallwonder/) - My son and his family live only 3 hours away from me in Portland (Oregon) and I often relish the drive down there for a visit. I have time to myself, just me and Jesus and my thoughts. (And really loud worship music. Bethel.) When I was ready for my return trip last week I
- [What did you Learn today?](https://jodyleecollins.com/what-did-you-learn-today/) - I love to learn new things. I've been a teacher off and on (mostly on) since about 1984. I tried a couple of times to find something else to do, but God keeps calling me back to the elementary classroom. Now I'm 'just a sub', but it is the best job ever. If I had
- [How to Receive an Unexpected Gift](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-to-receive-an-unexpected-gift/) - House finches flit, flit, flit and hummingbird whirrrrrs, hovering over birdseed an arm's length away. Red finch jets elsewhere, bearing left at the bushes and the chickadee perches, eyeing the feast. Crows alight silently on the trees straight ahead, swooping at nothing as they loudly announce the morning. The waterfall sound of freeway cars and
- [When You're in the Middle of a Transition](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-youre-in-the-middle-of-a-transition/) - I was re-reading my journal the other night, recapping life since May 2014 (when I started this particular volume). On December 10th I had written, "Mom's (my mother in law's) hip surgery is today. Life as you know it will stop." I have no idea why I wrote that other than I felt prompted by
- [If I Won a Golden Globe Award](https://jodyleecollins.com/if-i-won-a-golden-globe-award/) - photo credit* The Golden Globe awards were on last night, the show which honors not only television but movie shows, their actors and actresses. I had a vested interest in the outcome for the "Into the Woods" cast--not ONE award--shock! Of course, the real reason I watched was for the fashions--who was wearing what. Katherine
- [Introducing my Invisible Friends](https://jodyleecollins.com/introducing-my-invisible-friends/) - I'm joining the party over at the lovely Cara Strickland's today (you'll see her in a minute), where she invited other writers to share on the theme of friendship. You can visit the link up here.) The beauty of the world wide web is the instant connection one can make across the miles with family,
- [On New Year Resolutions](https://jodyleecollins.com/on-new-year-resolutions/) - It's the beginning of a New Year; a new start, a fresh beginning. Are you making any resolutions? I've made only one. It's like the over arching bridge that supports all the rest of my year. My resolution? To remember whose I am. I have the privilege of Guest Posting over at Jennifer Dukes Lee's
- [Where is Home? A Hobbit-y Treatise](https://jodyleecollins.com/where-is-home-a-hobbit-y-treatise/) - "If everyone valued home above gold, this world would be a merry place." Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit, Battle of the Five Armies Home is where we are welcomed, where laughter flows and prayers are offered around the table, where silly photos are snapped in the kitchen and grown-ups dance to music from The Nutcracker
- [When Life is Like Ice Skating](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-life-is-like-ice-skating/) - When God insisted on Winter I think Jesus chimed in and invented ice skating rinks (or at least the ice--well, of course, the ice!) All that whirling and twirling jumping and spinning going on. Pratfalls and crashes and grown ups and children whizzing by and falling-- re-upping their bodies umpty-million times. Fun and risk and
- [Photo Ops](https://jodyleecollins.com/photo-ops/) - Ripping paper tears, tape(d) to the back of yesterday, rends asunder the frame of today's reality. Too bad the glue that held the lives in place, frame-wise, could not extend to the flesh and blood heart-wise. ~~~~ going through family photos and sorrowing over the lives of people torn apart by life. There but
- [Traveling--the 23rd Psalm](https://jodyleecollins.com/traveling-the-23rd-psalm/) - When you have walked through the valley of the shadow and death came anyway (not to you, for you did.not.die) and there is breath in you to greet the day. when you survive the shredding of your soul to its core and the disappearance of dreams, all other challenges-- man made, God-breathed-- like snow-- can
- [What the Birds Say-A Winter Poem](https://jodyleecollins.com/what-the-birds-say-a-winter-poem/) - You could say (and you would be correct) the mottled, colorless sky leaves one bereft of brightness this time of year. You could say (see above) the empty, lifeless branches are dull, dormant gray/brown slender swords against said mottled sky. You could say (well, you know) there's little beauty in such poor adornment, small pleasure
- [When You're in it for the Long Haul](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-youre-in-it-for-the-long-haul/) - July 14th is Bastille Day, the French National Day commemorating the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. (I believe the folks mark the occasion with fireworks.) One hundred eighty four years later, in l973, my husband and I were married. There are still a few fireworks. That was forty-two years ago; by God's grace
- [Walking Through a Marriage](https://jodyleecollins.com/walking-through-a-marriage/) - A mountain so wide the horizon could not contain it The path rough and boulder-strewn, here a plain, then stumbling again through the dark undergrowth towards the top. We left for this journey in the light— someone keeps stealing it away. Sun rays appear in glimmers through the trees, a flutter here and there Revealing life,
- [Doors--A Metaphor](https://jodyleecollins.com/from-my-journal-doors/) - Doors are like plans. . Sometimes people hold a door open for you when your hands (your life) are full. You also use them to leave and head out into the world. Doors open/close, open/close--traffic comes and goes, we come and go in and out to find pasture. Sometimes they are closed for a
- [When Your God is too Small](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-your-god-is-too-small/) - The family of goldfinches crest over the roof above my head. Their -V- of flight dismantles as they land branch by branch in the green, bright yellow coloring invisible to my eye. Morning has begun. The world wakes up and it is always the birds' job to tell me so, messengers flinging notes aloft--I catch
- [That Still, Small Voice](https://jodyleecollins.com/that-still-small-voice/) - One of the best things about teaching Elementary School as a substitute teacher is hanging out with second graders (my favorite grade--innocent, love their teachers, AND they can usually tie their shoes). The other thing about Second Grade is that every February pretty much every teacher talks about penguins. Were it not for this exposure
- [The Dancing Trees](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-dancing-trees-small-wonder/) - They shimmer and sway in the breeze branchy partners against a Danube blue sky. Glassy diamonds on the green-- arrow fragments, light glimmering in an anthem song. The play a tune for my eyes, loudly announcing the beauty of dusk, a message in light music reflecting in emerald on the velvet evening. The leaves bend
- [Grace Isn't Cheap But It's Free](https://jodyleecollins.com/what-does-grace-really-cost/) - We raised our hands and voices again this morning in worship, singing of grace being an ocean...and if it is, we're all sinking. Then Heaven met earth like a sloppy, wet kiss. And well, after that line in the song, it took me awhile to get my spirit and soul focused on Jesus again. I
- [The Hurrier I go, the Behind-er I Get](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-hurrier-i-go-the-behind-er-i-get/) - My husband and I are embarking on another season of Home Improvements in the Collins Household. We've lived here for over 20 years; the house was built in 1979--the maintenance and care are ongoing. The other night we were calculating dimensions of the opening for a new sidelight to go next to our front door.
- [Rethinking Church](https://jodyleecollins.com/rethinking-church/) - *photo credit There's a bit of an imperfect storm in my head with several thoughts converging--conversations, blogposts, books I've read; bits and pieces I'll attempt to put together. This is a longish post and I've borrowed some words from my daughter (she said I could). Here's my story, wrapped around hers. ~~~~~~~~~ Standing at the sink,
- [My Favorite Season](https://jodyleecollins.com/my-favorite-season/) - Golden Gardens Seattle j.l. collins Seattle view j.l. collins A soaring wide-winged bird circles the lemon colored trees on the horizon. My eyes are drawn to the sight of flat-bottomed clouds stacked in the far off blue sky. I'd much rather swoon over the bursting expanse of creation in my view, but paying
- [On Mother's Day--Thanking Father God](https://jodyleecollins.com/on-mothers-day-thanking-father-god/) - Husband in the Firetruck, Son Aaron behind him DIL Courtney in front, daughter Leah on right first grandson Hanan (now 22) Daughter Leah practicing her mad chef skills 1982 ish; Leah and Aaron with their Grandpa Paul The smiling little boy above? He has (now) 5 children of his own. Here he is with
- [A Pattern for Joy](https://jodyleecollins.com/a-pattern-for-joysmall-wonder-link-up/) - Emily stands tall at her desk, right hand pinching the corner of a zippered plastic bag. Plunk, clack, plunk--colored wooden pattern blocks drop in a kaleidoscopic jumble in the bag. "This was so much fun, Mrs. C! It's the most fun we've had all year!" The most fun they've had all year. I'm not sure
- [A Writer's Life Credo](https://jodyleecollins.com/a-writers-life-credo/) - Because I cannot do 500 words a day every morning and well, frankly, wonder at those who do. From my files (circa 2008, long before this blog.) ~~~~~~~~~ I hate it that I am so sporadic Inconsistent, not persistent, no straight ahead in a line to the finish. I’m distracted, side-tracked Stops and starts,
- [Announcement](https://jodyleecollins.com/announcement/) - Four thirty a.m. The "chree-chree-chree" sounds in the far off greeny bog. "Whis-tle" "whis-tle" "whis-tle" returns the call, floating notes through the open window. A chorus of chirps and cheeps overlap like leaves in a pile at the singing tree, all the feathered throats announcing-- messaging, instantly-- a new day never-been-done day, it's-another-start-day. So I
- [Words 101](https://jodyleecollins.com/words-101/) - Our Father (my Father) which art in Heaven (and everywhere on display) Hallowed be thy name (kept holy and set apart is your name) Thy kingdom come
- [Spring's Verb Says {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/springs-verb-says-a-poem-small-wonder-link-up/) - Fireworks have nothing on me, no man-made show can match this explosive display. Shocking green here, shouting magenta there, showy white front and center. No gunpowder could blow breezes like this to bristle trees, to "whoosh" the wind across the skies, no factory fierce enough to produce this bright beauty. Spring's verb says the growing
- [Cross Words {a poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/cross-words-a-poem/) - W CROSS R D S Lamb. Perfect. Hung. Alone. Naked. For me. Abandoned. Blamed. Spit on. Mocked. Forsaken. For me. Loving. Spotless. Alone. For love. Blood poured out. For me. Broken. Crying. Praying. Dying. A garden beginning, A garden His ending. On a hill he hung for me.
- [29 Ways to be with your Lover](https://jodyleecollins.com/29-ways-to-be-with-your-lover/) - The early morning light is unrolling across the sky. Birds make their announcements in the treetops and I stand on my deck, cup of coffee in hand to take it in. My Lover is here. My Jesus, speaking to me through the birdsong and new sky day. The night before was full of restless thoughts
- [Looking for Just the Right Word](https://jodyleecollins.com/looking-for-just-the-right-word-smallwonder/) - Most mornings when I get ready for my day I have a pair of earrings in mind that I want to wear. I am no organizer of said jewelry--I do not have racks or dividers or containers arranged by color or strand. No little holders for the hoops here and the studs there.... All of
- [Mirror Me](https://jodyleecollins.com/mirror-me/) - Words like water poured outreflect my wide world,contained in pieces, paragraphsof pain and power and the past,puzzles to put into place.I long to be knownheard, seen, reflected in the pool you hold in your heartshowing me the "me" that I am.Instead of a mirror,you hand me a maptelling me where to GOor a manualtelling me what
- [Prepositions-A Poem of Praise](https://jodyleecollins.com/prepositions-a-poem-of-praise/) - Overcome by the quaking power of God's sweet presence Around the shoulders of friend-draped worshippers Across the room to the children raising, praising, lifting small hands Surrounded by incarnations of God in these multi-colored people Next to sweet-voiced sisters and deep-throated men, I'm looking~~eyes up and over and through the windows, past the summer-waving trees
- [Juneteenth 2015](https://jodyleecollins.com/juneteenth-2015/) - Feeling the rain come cave-cool air, white and empty but for the breeze. Still water rushing the trees, sleepy birds sitting at rest call out the change while tone on tone chimes echo from far below. The drops fall - spare, invisible, too few. My dry, gray lawn is thirsty and longs for a drenching, healing
- [Introduction to Poetry](https://jodyleecollins.com/introduction-to-poetry/) - I avoided it as long as I could, skirted the issue like a wallflower at my first dance. Curious from afar about such beauty and grace, wondering at the words. I felt unequal to the task conversing with verse-- or worse--writing it... why? What if I was wrong? I hesitated as long as I could,
- [English Lesson, Kindergarten](https://jodyleecollins.com/english-lesson-kindergarten/) - Across the pencils pointed skyward like so many word-wielding swords past the gray and steel of overflowing desks filled with orphaned papers stashed, crumpled askew over the carpet-bland, sturdy, useable home to small and hopeful feet to the doorway--closed. Through it comes life and noise and limbs, any moment now-- eager hearts, chattering faces, souls
- [Gossip {a #Poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/gossip/) - It only takes a few blueberries to purple the smoothie in my glass. Begging to add to the blender to lose that indigo hue-- strawberries (darker) milk (lighter) still leaves it purple-ish, staining my teeth on the way down and the sink when I'm all
- [Conversation](https://jodyleecollins.com/conversation/) - spent some time with the family recently. A lot of family....ever felt like this? ~~~~~~~~~~~ My train of thought often veers off track taking side journeys to sights unknown. I've jumped the rails, freight cars airborne, leaving passengers in my wake, schedules in hand, confused, wondering-- did they miss the whistle at the station-- 'cause surely,
- [Goldfinches](https://jodyleecollins.com/goldfinches/) - The feeder hangs swaying, no avian fellows alighting. (males are the brightest; why?) I wait and watch--they've flown I wonder where--for food? Will their shimmering yellow return, a harbinger of the lightening days ahead? Indeed, one by one, I know they'll come hungry again (still) as they've done year after year finding food, flying beauty, feeding me with their
- [Plumbline](https://jodyleecollins.com/plumbline/) - I stray like string in the wind untethered from that tight spot at the bottom holding me in place. Anchored there tension provides strength for the tune to be played-- a fiddler bows across the tautness and chords are plied, played as His fingers hold me in place. Snapped, tho', the string aflutter, undone there
- [Lessons in Autumn-A Poem](https://jodyleecollins.com/lessons-in-autumn-a-poem/) - One must gather a chair, a cushion, a small setting table field glasses, cup of tea, these grand books like quiet friends then sit. One must sit, knees crossed in cushioned chair anchored in the too tall grass, eyes to the hawthorn and bayberry, waving maple, water-sounding leaves on air. One must train the eye, not
- [When the Voice of Jesus Sounds like the Water Department](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-the-voice-of-jesus-sounds-like-the-water-department/) - I read recently there’s a bit of controversy about Sarah Young’s devotional book ‘Jesus Calling’, that perhaps it's ‘extra-biblical’, even new-age-y. The articles I read didn’t cite any of the particular daily devotions, just made rather sweeping statements about the fact she ‘claimed’ to hear from Jesus and wrote down what He said to her in
- [Catch the Song](https://jodyleecollins.com/catch-the-song/) - I’m so grateful Summer is officially over. It lasted way too many long, hot, sunshiny days for me. Truly. (I live in the Pacific Northwest. I am allowed to complain about these things.) We did not get our reprieve with refreshing summer rains. There were no soft gray mornings to offset the cloudless days. And
- [Constant, Like the Waves](https://jodyleecollins.com/constant-like-the-waves/) - The ocean has always been an anchor of home for me—particularly along the Southern California coast. I spent all of my growing up and teenage years near there and most of my best memories involve the sand, the sea and the surf. There is a lot of life
- [Hurrahing in Harvest--A Poem I Did Not Write](https://jodyleecollins.com/hurrahing-in-harvest-a-poem-i-did-not-write/) - "Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies? "I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes, Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
- [That September Day](https://jodyleecollins.com/that-september-day/) - The soft and subtle glow of the sun sits right side of my shoulder. Bumper by bumper, we move at a close and constant pace while I relish the music washing over me. Grateful to not be harried and hurrying homeward, I sing along with the music and turn up the volume conducting the
- [I've Been Asking {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/ive-been-asking-a-poem/) - I've been asking Jesus, because He said I could(ask)about a Five Year Plan--like a plannable annuitywith a guaranteed returnon my investment.As if....as if a sure answer formy tomorrows wouldbring me peace today.He whispers instead what's doable--The five hour plan--a clump of time allotted to,say, oh, baking a pie.Manageable, like a tried and truerecipe--gather ingredientscheck ovendouble check recipeslice,
- [From My Journal #2--Getting Good Grades](https://jodyleecollins.com/from-my-journal-2-getting-good-grades/) - Nothing is FINALThere is always a new day, a new chanceNoting is FATALYou won't die; this experience won't kill youNothing is FUTILEEven if you've blown it, you can learn from this; God uses it all. Bottom line: We have to believe what Jesus says about us instead of what we think of ourselves. ~~~~~~From my journal
- [When You Can't see the Trees](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-you-cant-see-the-trees/) - There's a danger in going back to visit a place you've grown up in--a chance for your psyche to experience a bit of a jolt when what you remember doesn't line up with reality.Actually, much of life is like that.My husband and I recently returned from an 8-day trip to California, the majority of the
- [Memories, Flora-wise, a Polysyllabic Poem](https://jodyleecollins.com/memories-flora-wise-a-polysyllabic-poem/) - Botanically speaking, the plant names trip on the tongue with some effort (mine) but once murmured, sound like the tune to an old song I've known all my life, the words rolling off in chunks of meaning as I pass by a rainbow of familiar flora - oleander--pinnate, poisonous, softened by pink and purple eucalyptus--fragrance in crushed wood, leaving the warmth
- [Miracle](https://jodyleecollins.com/miracle/) - We’ve been informed we are flying at 29,000 feet (approximately) above the face of the Earth, suspended (how? by speed, lift and whatnot) like a moving planet jettisoned in a line moving at the speed of sound (light?). Refreshments are served, secured with invisible payments traveling via plastic and magnets swiped by staff standing still as
- [When You're Leaf-full](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-youre-leaf-full/) - orange trees from the orange grove where my husband was raised, Yorba Linda CA. I bless thee, Lord, because I GROW Among thy trees, which in a ROW To thee both fruit and order OW. When thou dost greater judgements SPARE And with thy knife but prune and PARE, Ev'n fruitful trees more fruitful ARE.
- [Writing Down the Bones {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/imitation-is-the-purest-form-of-flattery/) - Something has been said about "writing down the bones" which sounds like a good practice if you're learning anatomy. But the first time I heard the phrase, I thought it was "writing down the poems," So I am. Writing down the poems moving my bones, the ligaments lightly holding the pen-- black on paper, blue,
- [I Meant to Thank You**](https://jodyleecollins.com/i-meant-to-thank-you/) - I thought I had tomorrow-more than one, like petalsfrom an infinite flowerheld in my hand.I thought I had tomorrowfoolishly thinking the chanceswould arise in infinite numberrolling in like wavesagain and again on the shore.But the words-writ at my feet,stayed there, washing awaylike silken sand,crumbling in liquid lines--the words I never said.I meant to say "Thank
- [Glory be to God--City Version](https://jodyleecollins.com/poetry-is-everywhere-city-version/) - (after Gerard Manley Hopkins) Narrows Bridge, WA, photo by the author Glory be to God for freeway things For vehicles chrome-colored as Airstream and kin For billboards and tires that erstwhile sing Lemony busses, soldiering vans with commuters in. Praise Him all wheels and pavement,
- [Living Room](https://jodyleecollins.com/living-room/) - What does it take to feel alive?Warm sun, a fresh breeze, the breath of God.Peace, quiet, the creak of a floor,chiming of a bell in the distance,the tinkling of a cat's bell.The fragrance of a morning rose and fresh coffee.The purr of a fan, the taste of a peachthe drone of a bee,the deep in and out
- [The View from Here--a Seattle Portrait](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-view-from-here-a-seattle-portrait/) - A mystery, really--these mute carriers of a collection of qualities known only to humankind. The sway of the valise, a pendulum of skin-covered appendages, the flip of the handbag: back-side, front-side, side-side synchronized while hiking the concrete sun-filled hillsides up to the top~ View Just Ahead. Oblivious to said view in their busy ant kingdom
- [Writing Exercise {a #Poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/writing-exercise-a-poem/) - "Stretch" must be a biblical word, regardless of one's age (an extension, a straining) like a two-year-old reaching on tiptoes towards her Father, not unlike the discomfort of unfolding old bones and well-used knees, joints so stiff they've forgotten how to bend. I want to stress and press past the comfortable,groan with the growing, the knowing that dailyI must
- [Lessons in Love from the Snow](https://jodyleecollins.com/lessons-in-love-from-the-snow/) - Water, is taught by thirst Land-by the oceans passed. Transport--by throe-- Peace--by its battles told-- Love, by Memorial Mold-- Birds, by the Snow. Emily Dickinson, 1896 ~~~~~~~~~~ no snow here, friends, not yet. but plenty of birds and poetry.
- [Wherein I take Nothing for Granted](https://jodyleecollins.com/wherein-i-take-nothing-for-granted/) - It’s your breath in our lungs As we pour out our praise, Pour out our praise, It’s your breath in our lungs As we pour out our praise To you only. All the earth will shout Your praise Our hearts will cry, These bones will sing, Great are You, Lord. It’s your breath in our lungs
- [Beauty in a Broken World](https://jodyleecollins.com/beauty-in-a-broken-world/) - “The whole universe was stilled as though listening for a voice. For the space of one heart-beat there was peace on earth. For one fraction of a moment there was no deed of violence wrought on the earth, no hatred, no fire, no whirlwind, no pain, no fear. Existence rested against the
- [How to Build a Bridge with Words](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-to-build-a-bridge-with-words/) - First item on the grocery list: postage stamps. In ALL CAPS. I’ve written it down three times this week, only to return with pasta, bread and milk, but no stamps. This necessitates an emergency trip to the drugstore; I HAVE to get my Grandson's birthday card in the mail. While the counter clerk rings up
- [A Grief Observed](https://jodyleecollins.com/a-grief-observed/) - I came as a witness, the extra listener, to deflect and defend, maybe decide what this grief will look like. The suited man at the table tells us there are options for this sort of thing. My daughter L holds a tissue, I poise my pen at the paper before me. Burying a child is
- [An Interview with Poet Laurie Klein](https://jodyleecollins.com/an-interview-with-poet-laurie-klein/) - Laurie Klein and I first met online after I'd been following her work in print for a number of years. We share a common decade and a love of poetry and song. I then discovered she was blogging and we've been corresponding ever since. Laurie is the author of the prize-winning chapbook 'Bodies of Water,
- [Kindergarten, January](https://jodyleecollins.com/kindergarten-january/) - I never dreamed one day I’d be parsing a picture book explaining to five year olds that yes, a black man was shot by someone who hated him because of the color of his skin, and before he died he had a Dream for children just like them. After the story (required), they—with their earnest,
- [Available](https://jodyleecollins.com/available/)
- [Drinking Song](https://jodyleecollins.com/drinking-song/) - Thank you, Jesus, you came to The average everyday of us, Chose dwelling in limited space, Smiling your vast smile at our Smallness as we reach for our evening beers Down at the local, Baring our souls as we join heart and soul With our friends. You sit back and rest with us in our
- [Four Lines for this October Day](https://jodyleecollins.com/four-lines-for-this-october-day/) - Furious gusts of wayward windstrip branches bare of late season leaves,punctuating the sky with explosions of colorand silent, sweeping stars.
- [Glory be to God-A Riff on Hopkins](https://jodyleecollins.com/a-riff-on-hopkins/) - Glory be to Godfor susurrous memory,the quiet whispers of bonnybeach walks sailing over azure skiesborn of a windy world.Efflorescence hurls worldsof wondrous words, a witness born of plentiful peace, sprung from a place of singing.Worshipful worlds of Spirit peace,sprung from a place of singing.Praise Him.~~~~~~ In October of 2016 my gifted friend K.C. Ireton and I co-facilitated
- [Summer is for Reading](https://jodyleecollins.com/summer-is-for-reading/) - “The heart has its own time. How incredibly fleet are the happy hours, and how leaden slow the sad ones. The clock cannot hurry the sorrowful minutes a jot, nor clip the wings of the joyous ones!” Gladys Taber, Stillmeadow Seasons When I was twelve years old I ran away. Well, not literally; I just
- [The Joy of Poetry-Megan Willome](https://jodyleecollins.com/why-poetry-why-not/) - “What if there were no poetry? What if all life were prose? Some people wouldn’t mind. One friend told me her son didn’t know how to do imaginative play. He lined up his action figures and then shrugged and walked away. He didn’t know what else to do. Poetry gives you an idea of what
- [Old Tables and New Life {Roots & Sky Edition}](https://jodyleecollins.com/old-tables-and-new-life-roots-sky-edition/) - I pour lemon oil onto my dust rag, massaging the small table's worn and chipped surface. No amount of elbow grease or lemon oil will cover up the wear and tear--scuffs from an old plant container, water rings from one too many glasses of iced tea, the solitary black circle from a dropped cigarette. Simply
- [Summer is for Listening](https://jodyleecollins.com/summer-is-for-listening/) - "My soul, wait silently for God alone; for my expectation is from Him." Psalm 62:5 "How slow many are to learn that quietness is blessing, that quietness is strength, that quietness is the source of the highest activity--the secret of all true abiding in Christ! Let us try to learn it and watch out for
- [Dwelling With God, The Retreat Version](https://jodyleecollins.com/dwelling-with-god-the-retreat-version/) - The weekend of October 16-18, 2016, was a Heaven-come-to-earth occasion at 'Dwell', an intimate Writer's Retreat co-led with my friend Kimberlee Ireton. We 'Glory Writers' camped in Psalm 37 for the weekend, particularly verses 3-7, and meditated on all those verbs--'Trust' 'Delight' 'Commit' 'Rest' and the tough-to-do 'Fret not.' My paraphrase of the definition of
- [For Friends Too Many to Name {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/for-friends-too-many-to-name/) - Years and miles evaporate like the season's new-birthed fog, leaving the strong, bright gleam of friendship lighthouse true. Holding true like the trees weathered through decades of sun as we weathered our own wearying waves of life, lapping at the edge of our friendship, threatening to erode the years of tears and laughter, the space and
- [What Forgiveness Tastes Like](https://jodyleecollins.com/what-forgiveness-tastes-like/) - I wanted to title this "The Night We Ate Tacos & Nobody Got Hurt." Read on to find out why. Family gatherings around life events are often joyous, emotional occasions; wedding preparations definitely take the cake when it comes to lots of Big Feelings. Mix the mother of the groom, the father of the bride,
- [How the Things we Keep, Keep Us](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-the-things-we-keep-keep-us/) - May 12, 1974 "Dearest Jody, I'm writing you today to say, "I'm glad I'm your mom." I am now, and always have been, so proud of you, Jo. Can't remember a single moments' "trouble" that you've ever been in or any periods of anxiety that you have caused. Sure there were minutes of panic...like the
- [When Your Life is Under Construction](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-your-life-is-under-construction/) - view of our backyard, early Summer, from the upper deck I have been pondering the tension lately between between the image I project to the world about my life and what is ACTUALLY going on. Every morning I stand at my kitchen sink, I see a variation of this view above. I often post the
- [Keeping Watch](https://jodyleecollins.com/keeping-watch/) - I flatten myself carpetside, legs parallel as the lines of a crosswalk,arms a perpendicular “T”to my torso, aching as theystretch (or do they stretchand therefore ache?) Open-bodiedstance releases all weight of this weary week.White-flagging my way to the floora wide space spans my once-tightpalms, now held by an invisiblesilken thread index to index.Sprung free from
- [The Ministry of Trees {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-trees-speak/) - Autumn morning, my eyes are trainedthrough windows to the shadowshow on tree trunks, crayon box of colors falling through space from newly-revealed branches.Creator comes to mind, how Hecarries us, colors us, covers uswith His power, tree-like arms ourstrength, raising us Heavenward. Aware that sap is invisible, a pulsing, stickyriver, carrying nourishment in its wake while
- [Gossamer Faith](https://jodyleecollins.com/gossamer-faith/) - Sir spider suspended, still but for the invisible jarring of his aerial abode. Does it frighten him to be held by strength he cannot see, to scuttle across the sky, limb to leaf knowing the opposite anchored end could detach in a blink? Still he spins in space, hovers across my path while I dodge and
- [Water Carriers {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/water-carriers/) - Thirsty, thankful heartsraised, open cups heldaloft, receive the joy of songand words,healed in the hearing. We ferry the preciousbounty via voice andtone, conduits of the balmthat is the bounty of praise,pouring into vessels,empty to be filled. Parched lips receivethe draught and splash inthe glory drops, wash inthe words, bask inthe golden sound as it channelslife
- [On Keeping Words-Notebooks, Quotebooks & Journals](https://jodyleecollins.com/on-keeping-words-notebooks-quotebooks-journals/) - The whole universe was stilled as tho’ listening for a voice. For the space of one heartbeat there was peace on earth…Existence rested against the heart of God, then sighed and journeyed again. Elizabeth Goudge, “Green Dolphin Country.” I enjoy saving and savoring words—new words, old words, your words. Although I am not endeavoring
- ["LaLa Land" & Other Revelations](https://jodyleecollins.com/lala-land-other-revelations/) - Disclaimer: the following is a sort of movie review. This film was made in Hollywood. There are a couple bad words in it and people sleep together. They are fully clothed and nothing happens, but still. Just thought I should say that. My friend Jill and I finally got to go see “LaLa Land.” (Los
- [When Your Words Match Your Life](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-your-words-match-your-life/) - The origin of the word 'journal' is from Old French--"jornel" meaning 'daily.' In Latin the word is 'diurnalis', prompting our English word 'diary.' A journal is "a record of daily events, a day book, a ship's log." People, myself included, used to 'keep' a journal, a place to collect important events, timely thoughts, the occasional
- [Why Gray is Better than Black and White](https://jodyleecollins.com/why-gray-is-better-than-black-and-white/) - "It is possible to enjoy Me and glorify Me in the midst of adverse circumstances. My light shines most brightly through believers who trust Me in the dark." Sarah Young, 'Jesus Calling.' I grew up in Southern California, the land of pavement, palm trees and perpetual sunshine., All that blue and bright color became
- [Planting, Pruning & Other Acts of Faith](https://jodyleecollins.com/planting-pruning-other-acts-of-faith/) - "The seed catalogues are a further promise of warm days to come. I class them as fiction and love to read them. Oh, the beautiful roses and tall spikes of delphinium and the flowering bushes-not to mention the carrots as big as telephone poles and the peas that practically shell themselves... We get some pretty
- [Why Slow Starts are Best (or, Typing as Therapy)](https://jodyleecollins.com/why-slow-starts-are-best-or-typing-as-therapy/) - "For who knows how, Better than he that taught us first to Plough, To guide our Mind and Pens for his Design? And he makes base things usher in Divine." John Bunyan, the Author's Apology for His Book, Pilgrim's Progress I wrote at the beginning of this year about starting small, starting now when leaning
- [Why Creation is a Messy Process](https://jodyleecollins.com/why-creation-is-a-messy-process/) - It all began with my suitcase. I recently returned from a five day trip to Texas to see family and friends and attend a writer’s conference in the Austin area. I packed way too many clothes and shoes. And books. (One always miscalculates the amount of ‘free time’ to read while on a trip.) In
- [Physical Science {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/holy-landing/) - "Samara," she said and the words took flight in my hearing, invisible windborne flora soaring across my thoughts. She spoke of wings, a divine creation spinning towards earth to plant itself like a stubborn weed-fierce and stuck. Imagination took root, sending me flying home towards Webster's-- 'some-are-uh' - and there a black and white drawing
- [Lighthouse-a Poem/Prayer](https://jodyleecollins.com/lighthouse-a-poem-prayer/) - I wish I could collectthe light, landing its shadowson this page as it creepsever brighter through the gray. Pour it out to wash my heart,salve the wound of thispresent heaviness, the sighsthat never end. Hold it lightly aloft, prayingno sharp wind orquiet, steady breezesnuff it out, for weneed it so Father, carry us,ferry us through
- [I've Been Asking](https://jodyleecollins.com/ive-been-asking/) - Jesus, because He said I could (ask) about a Five Year Plan-- like a plannable annuity with a guaranteed return on my investment. as if... as if a sure answer for my tomorrows would bring me peace today. He whispers instead what's doable-- the Five Hour Plan-a chunk of time allotted to say, oh, baking
- [The Practice of Pondering While Making Soup](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-practice-of-prayer-while-making-soup/) - Facing the stove, I busy my hands with this thrice-cooked fowl, weaving waterherbs and onions to conjure a warming repast for our souls.Skin holds meat, meat holdsbone (or is it the other way around?) andas chunks slip and slide into the bubblingpot before me, I wonder, wordless,at the speed with which we revereand revile our
- [Sabbath on the Page, Winter {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/sabbath-on-the-page-winter/) - What can you hear in a winter sky? Trees sleeping, sap coursing slowly stopped by these northern climes and their accompanying chill. The sound of sunlight, settled like a theater's best ending, shadowplay kept
- [The Word](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-word/) - Son, ferried within water, the womb of his mother. She, comforted on the back of a donkey, led at the hand by a hopeful man, father, to the House of Bread.Seer, sounding words that seared the hearts of those who
- [Home-A Poem in Three Parts](https://jodyleecollins.com/home-a-poem-in-three-parts/) - Beginning Years and miles evaporate like the morning's ocean fog where the strong, bright gleam of friendship holds true. Holds true like trees that have weathered decades of sun as we weathered our own wearying waves of life, lapping at the edge of our friendship, threatening to erode the years of tears and laughter, the breaking
- [On Prayer, Potatoes and Pulling Weeds](https://jodyleecollins.com/on-prayer-potatoes-and-pulling-weeds/) - I have two garden beds in my back yard—one a perennial bed of flowers, the other a 12x6 rectangle of mostly weeds. The flower bed is behaving as expected this time of year--peony shoots with their magenta spikes heading skyward, the clematis tendrils beginning to twirl up and around the bird gazebo. A ‘Sombrero’ Echinacea
- [Wait Training {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-your-workout-includes-wait-training/) - I want to fly these dumbbells up, down, up, down quick! The momentum of each lift rising at my side pushing past perhaps what's safe or wise in the name of what? Speed or yes, the checklist-exercise- done! When I slow instead, face the window and raise these weighted arms slow, slow, slow-up; slow, slow,
- [Why Rear View Mirrors are Better Than Windshields](https://jodyleecollins.com/why-rear-view-mirrors-are-better-than-windshields/) - "The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, Shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” Proverbs 4:18 When I began this year, God gave me a word--"adjust." Last year I spent time 'abiding', year before that it was 'dwell' (very similar) and the year before that, my word was
- [Writer's Break {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/writers-break/) - I've been awash in words of late, missing out on the wind waving through steel branches, blue and white sky. Eyes too crowded to take note of the weather which goes on without me, whether I watch it or not. A glance through the dining room glass speaks loudly in all caps. I am listening.
- [Christian Bookstore, Holy Week](https://jodyleecollins.com/christian-bookstore-holy-week/) - Jesus and I are on an outing the week before Easter. We pull up to a strip mall; He unbuckles his seatbelt and I turn off the ignition. As we climb out of the car and walk towards an open door He remarks, “Oh, a Christian bookstore; let’s see what they’re selling.” We step inside
- [To the Tune of 'Lilies', {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/to-the-tune-of-lilies-a-poem/) - There is a song in petals, the rainsound of notes on thirsty earth feeding spring's new flowers. There is a melody in the making of a garden where silent, shriveled seeds wait to burst, pushing through wet soil with their magic strength inside. There is a harmony in the golden leafwhisper and silent shout of
- [God Can't Make You But You Can Let Him](https://jodyleecollins.com/god-cant-make-you-but-you-can-let-him/) - Just when you think there’s going to be a breather between some professional sports championship or another, a new season starts. Remember the Sweet Sixteen in basketball? Done. Now we have baseball to think about. Our Seattle Mariners have already played several games—they’re about even for wins and losses—but I still can’t get used to
- [Nouns-Some Thoughts on People, Places & Things](https://jodyleecollins.com/nouns-some-thoughts-on-people-places-things/) - “…you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” II Corinthians 3:3 Last week I traveled to Southern California, the land where I grew up and lived until I
- [Reading Upstream-Poetry, Fiction & Biography](https://jodyleecollins.com/reading-upstream-poetry-fiction-biography/) - When it comes to those things that bring me joy, I’m not sure whether I fancy birds or books more. Perhaps equally. I have books with ‘birds’ in the title melding those two—a love of reading and a fascination with my avian friends. There is much I learn from both—life lessons from the birds, echoing
- [Shaping the River Into Words](https://jodyleecollins.com/shaping-the-river-into-words/) - "My heart bursts its banks, spilling beauty and goodness. I pour it out in a poem to the king, shaping the river into words:" Psalm 45:1, The Message ~*~*~*~*~* Some people are artists who process their world through paint and pen, fabric, clay, paper. Thoughts become images or design, an expression of what's inside
- [Read & Pray in Your 'Walking Around Life'](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-to-live-hungry/) - I was going to subtitle this, “Will Jesus Still Love me if I Don’t Have ‘Quiet Time?" ‘cause I’ve been thinking about that question a lot lately. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve studied Psalm 119—I know God’s word is the compass for my life, that I can’t live without it. But sometimes life goes in a different
- [Inventory {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/inventory/) - Lavender linaria spikes upward, miniature clouds stalk-perched as they reach for the sky. Hummingbirds crowd-feed in the waning afternoon sun. Carnations, red as a fresh-cut thumb, wave divine perfume from ruffled taffeta on gray-green stems. Sweet peas' pungent surprise, a salmon/marshmallow palette, celestial
- [Silence Ascends, Sunday {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/silence-ascends-sunday/) - There's a lot one can say about the power of being quiet (yes, I see the irony). When listening forefronts the mind other senses muscle their way into place (the ears above all) take in the not-words simply song, hum and tone
- [Up {a #Poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/up/) - "In the beginning" begs the existence of a dot, the endpoint of a line referencing time and movement, like an ant on the Golden Gate Bridge. If there is time (now) and movement (how?) why do we shun this guess the size of a galaxy, turn from the possibility of a God placing us just
- [Why Your Story Matters](https://jodyleecollins.com/why-your-story-matters/) - Some friends and I were having lunch the other day, discussing various challenges to find the time to write—caring for children, caring for our homes, talking with spouses, all manner of delights and duties. Then there was the other ‘D’—distractions. In between bites of fish and chips I lamented the ease with which I am
- [On God’s Timing (and Rejection Letters)](https://jodyleecollins.com/on-gods-timing-and-rejection-letters/) - “Petit a petit, l’oiseau fait son nid.” Little by little, the bird builds its nest. (from the French) Why does it always seem like the final hours of a long trip last forever when all you can think about is your comfortable bed? My husband and I had just spent a recent weekend with our
- [How Books Saved Me](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-books-saved-me-2/) - Some of the most delicious morsels we consume are not the meals we partake of but rather the nourishment of words which speak to our souls. When you are the oldest of five children with alcoholic parents, life is tenuous and uncertain, to say the least. Rocky around the edges and loosely glued together by
- [On Beauty, Books & A Birthday-A Photo Essay](https://jodyleecollins.com/on-beauty-books-a-birthday-a-pictorial-essay/) - No matter where I live, I recognize the song of a red-winged blackbird. In rushes near the shore’s edge of a California beach, along the canals and waterways in the San Joaquin Valley, the tall grasses along a Louisiana bayou or deep in marshes along Washington’s coast, the voice of the songbird is the same.
- [Bob Goff, Keith Green & Gratitude](https://jodyleecollins.com/bob-goff-keith-green-gratitude/) - Lower Yosemite Falls, 2015 jlc “We’ll know we’re living gratefully by seeing how our love multiplies itself in the lives of the people around us. People don’t follow vision; they follow availability.” -Bob Goff, founder of lovedoes.org Last week I rewarded myself for five days straight of computer-gnashing a.k.a. book writing, by getting a pedicure. I
- [The Body of Memories-September 11th](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-body-of-memories/) - I met a friend recently for lunch at a park near my home, desperate for her company and encouragement. Nerves were frayed, emotions out of whack, reserve tanks anything but reserved. I apologized in advance for my undone condition. As I attempted to articulate my very frail feelings, blaming my 4 am wake-up call after
- [Why I Stopped Having 'Quiet Time' {for all the right reasons}](https://jodyleecollins.com/why-i-stopped-having-quiet-time-for-all-the-right-reasons/) - “…the resolving of the conflict between sacred and the secular (or, better said, the repairing of the damage done by divorcing them) has been billed as the major problem of modern theology.” -Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb, 1967 ///// The writer of those words penned his thoughts 50 years ago, and while
- [Things I'm Not Good At (or Why I Decorate With Books)](https://jodyleecollins.com/things-im-not-good-at-or-why-i-decorate-with-books/) - "So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t." Romans 12:5, The Message Bible
- [65 is Just a Number {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/65-is-just-a-number/) - There is no statute of limitations on vision. My old eyes register a darting messenger ofGod's blatant, creative joy. Watch the wingedcreation hover in a web of air.Spy a sleuthing intrudersnap-tapping its wayacross the wood, tunnelingaway and down the outside stairs. No expiration (yet) for hearing,cataloguing birdvoice and thechipclacking of breakfastat the feeder, the squeakinginsistence
- [Jigsaw Puzzles as a Prayer](https://jodyleecollins.com/jigsaw-puzzles-as-a-prayer/) - Every year at Christmas our kids get my husband and I a jigsaw puzzle. This year Santa pitched in and we actually ended up with three puzzles--birds, the beach and kites--our three favorite things. A great Friday night date for my husband and I is to build a fire, turn on the music and puzzle away….a simple, quiet joy
- [Falling in Love with Books & The People Who Write Them](https://jodyleecollins.com/falling-in-love-with-books-the-people-who-write-them/) - "A book begins with falling in love. You lose your heart to a place, a house, an avenue of trees, or with a character who walks in and takes sudden and complete possession of you. Imagination glows, and there is the seed of your book." -Elizabeth Goudge, The Joy of the Snow, 1974 Squeezed into
- [Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People? Is That the Right Question?](https://jodyleecollins.com/why-do-bad-things-happen-to-good-people-is-that-the-right-question/) - "Harbor me in the eye of the storm I'm holding on to the love you swore." -John Mark McMillan, Love You Swore The other day on Instagram I asked: “How is it we never wonder why good things happen to good people? Or why good things happen to bad people?” My reflections were a version
- [Worry & Wonder--Holy Week](https://jodyleecollins.com/worry-wonder-holy-week/) - "Only in those moments of vivid experience that made her come alive was she at home in her own country." --Marianne in Green Dolphin Country, Elizabeth Goudge, Hodder & Stoughton, 1944 Friend T and I were chatting on Instagram the other day about my favorite author (see above). There's no writer I can recall
- [How I Became a Twitter Convert and Kept My Sanity](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-i-became-a-twitter-convert-and-kept-my-sanity/) - I am still basking in the afterglow of a rich and rewarding five days at the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Michigan. (Thank you, Grand Rapids, snow and all.) I am exhausted and beyond tired. My brain is packed, my spirit is full to overflowing and my body has been existing
- [Aging With Grace--40 Women Over 40 Tell All](https://jodyleecollins.com/aging-with-grace-40-women-over-40-tell-all/) - Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Isaiah 46:4 NIV Two weeks ago I took my first ever trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to attend the
- [Five Questions for...Deidra Riggs](https://jodyleecollins.com/five-questions-for-deidra-riggs/) - I began following Deidra Riggs online way back in 2012; I enjoyed her honesty, her wisdom and her down-to-earth take on spiritual issues. We finally met in person at the 2014 Faith and Culture Writer's Conference in Oregon and we've continued the conversation on and off line since. I so appreciate her voice in the
- [January Bird {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/january-bird/) - Where have you been? Out of town like those who flee our chilled clime and metallic skies? Elsewhere, warming up your voice to herald today's sunrise with your song? I welcome your morning melody making its way to my ears, stirring memories of other songs on sullen, silver days when your music was my only
- [When God's Word Goes Haywire {Operator Error}](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-gods-word-goes-haywire-operator-error/) - You know how it is when you're clicking around online and you visit a website link looking for information and up pops that 404 Error message? I was stuck in a rabbit hole kind of like that recently, stewing for weeks over an issue (always the battleground for me, the ol' noggin) and could not seem
- [How to Lent-Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-to-lent-spiritual-practice-for-the-rest-of-us-2/) - The city of New Orleans has a singular reputation for laissez les bon temps rouler (“let the good times roll”) no matter what time of year. During Mardi Gras, though, the celebrations take on an over-the-top frenzy that is hard to match. We lived in New Orleans in the 1970’s and saw this dress-up carnival
- [When Music Breaks Your Heart {open}](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-music-breaks-your-heart-open/) - Several years ago I was glancing out the window in my study when a Facebook message popped up with a link to Gabriel's Oboe, a composition by Ennio Morricone from The Mission movie soundtrack. I'd seen the film years before but did not remember this particular piece. It is simple strings and gentle notes from
- [Love in the Time of the Corona](https://jodyleecollins.com/love-in-the-time-of-the-corona/) - It has occurred to me during this time of worldwide change and upset that although we have been told to isolate and keep our distance from one another, we may in the long run learn how to love each other better. Poetry has been my method of processing the world lately; here's a few lines
- [We Were Made for Connection](https://jodyleecollins.com/we-were-made-for-connection-lifeinthetimeofthecorona/) - Last week I wrote about #loveinthetimeofthecorona--illuminating what or how we can embody love in the world in these very challenging times, especially as believers in Jesus. (And? Did you know, #loveinthetimeofthecorona is actually a hashtag on Instagram and Twitter. If you are on either of those social media platforms, type in the hashtag and be
- [Seven Books for the Seasons](https://jodyleecollins.com/seven-books-for-the-seasons/) - Did you know that woodchucks (aka the groundhog) and Jesus' birthday have something in common? On the church calendar, February 2nd is Candlemas, the last Feast Day in the Christian year dated in reference to Christmas. This celebration of Candlemas marks the presentation of Jesus in the Temple 40 days after his birth (as Jewish
- [When You're Drowning in Words](https://jodyleecollins.com/when-youre-drowning-in-words/) - The overwhelm is real--create anyway.
- [Accompaniment {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/accompaniment-a-poem/) - Birds, their tones both winged and brightHarmonize from branches out of sightKnow their parts, score memorizedFlash and zoom before my eyes. Soprano, alto, second, bassThroaty praises from branchy placeEcho, float, reverberateA pause, then celebrate Mornings’ rise first slow and quietAgainst dull backdrops now a riotTheir songs a span of treble and bassBackground my day, this
- [Contemplate {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/contemplate-a-poem/) - I've no chisel but this penchipping at paper like stone,carving words, not to build but bendgraphite like steel, curve the bones (Dear God, not break) but lay in place and thenform a space to hold a new edifice,sculpt and rest and tap some morewhile You hand me bricks to begin, restore.***The word contemplate is from
- [I'm Writing Another Book! Help Me Tell the World?](https://jodyleecollins.com/im-writing-another-book-help-me-tell-the-world/) - First of all, hello to new subscribers and welcome! I'm glad you're here. By now you all know I write a bit of poetry.... much of it has been published here on my website but I have had the honor of seeing my work in print and in other places here on the web over the
- [Hearts on Pilgrimage-Poems & Prayers-My Upcoming Book](https://jodyleecollins.com/hearts-on-pilgrimage-the-preface-from-my-upcoming-poetry-book/) - Tell someone you've written a book and they'll ask, "What's it about?" Well, here's my non-elevator pitch, from the Preface of Hearts on Pilgrimage-Poems & Prayers, January 2021. The Path When I said my initial yes to Jesus over 40 years ago, I found poet Luci Shaw's first book, Listen to the Green and was
- [We Interrupt your Holiday Preparations With a "Hearts on Pilgrimage" Book Update](https://jodyleecollins.com/we-interrupt-your-holiday-preparations-with-a-hearts-on-pilgrimage-book-update/) - To new followers here--Welcome! And for those faithful readers & friends--an update:Anyone who’s decided to write, edit or release a book in the last nine months of #lifeinthetimeofcorona might be considered misguided, but that’s exactly what I’ve been up to. My book of poetry--Hearts on Pilgrimage-Poems & Prayers--will, God willing, be released at the end of
- [It's Almost Here--Hearts on Pilgrimage-Poems & Prayers](https://jodyleecollins.com/its-almost-here-hearts-on-pilgrimage-poems-prayers/) - It's the fourth day of Christmas and I'm sitting at my dining table while shadows play on the Advent wreath and the dishwasher hums. The post-holiday lull has begun, that in-between time where memories of enjoying my family's company, complete with six noisy grandkids, partner with a looking-forward frame of mind to a new year
- [A Scarlet Thread--Rahab, Holy Week & Me](https://jodyleecollins.com/a-scarlet-thread-rahab-holy-week-me/) - The Scarlet Cord There was no faithline or family promises passed on through prayer. Only a bloodline from Creation's start, A scarlet thread bound and wound together, a cord the color of life made by a Weaver who dyed it red with blood. Woven with the loom of love, a lifeline coming my way~ over
- [How to Measure Time {a #poem}](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-to-measure-time-a-poem/) - I swerved around a swallowtail today, its goldblackblue mosaic translated across the glass and gone. Street’s curbed outline caught the corner of my eye as the colorburst startled me to noticing, awakened me to a sight just past the neighbors. A sudden glimpse of canines at their master’s feet—heads anon, ears aperk—then they rose and
- [Jesus--Heaven & So Much More](https://jodyleecollins.com/jesus-heaven-so-much-more/) - Last week in Sunday School we talked about the number 1, and how there’s only One Way to Heaven—and that’s Jesus. Of course, “Jesus” is the Sunday School answer to nearly everything. And it works, especially if you’re a young child. But what about as we grow older? This got me thinking. Jesus said He
- [How to Be a Poem](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-to-be-a-poem/) - God with us in the broken place. E manu el, Yahweh whose hand steadies and steers us while we lift our face. Prayers rise. We cannot transform a heart but we can tend and feed the bodies housing hope, care for roses, prune and weed, wash and fold, clothe the people who inhabit our petitions.
- [Sugar Birds by Cheryl Grey Bostrom](https://jodyleecollins.com/sugar-birds-by-cheryl-grey-bostrom/) - "Personally, I know little about God, whoever he is. If he is. I realize, however, that to some, he's downright awesome. From Gram's description, I picture him like a raptor with a sky's wingspan, exhaling love's oxygen on his hatchlings, feeding them comfort and truth and power straight from his beak." -Sugar Birds, Cheryl Bostrom
- [My Heart-God's Garden](https://jodyleecollins.com/my-heart-gods-garden/) - There are times in the dead of winter that I have a hard time imagining ANYTHING will every be growing or blooming in my flower beds. Then Spring and Summer come and it's an EXPLOSION of color that can't be contained. Somewhere in the middle of all that green there are plants vying for sunlight
- [Lucy & Ethel Italy Travelogue--A Photo Essay](https://jodyleecollins.com/lucy-ethel-italy-travelogue-a-photo-essay/) - FULL DISCLOSURE: long post ahead but there are lots of great photos. The thoughts below are directly affected by a post-Europe travel brain and my best attempt at gathering my thoughts. Paragraphs may be rather random. "May be?" They are. People travel for different reasons. To see the world, visit friends, taste new food, for
- [Bill & Jody Get  (and stay) Married-An Anniversary Story](https://jodyleecollins.com/bill-jody-stay-married-an-anniversary-story/) - July 14th, 1973 Nothing says 'tine machine' quite like a blurry photo or a guy with a bushy beard and a wearing daisies in her hair on her wedding day. I say 'time machine' because my wedding dress was made of cotton eyelet and my bridesmaids wore yellow checked gingham. My cake topper also had
- [How to Pray While Pushing Furniture Around](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-to-pray-while-pushing-furniture-around/) - The first verses of Isaiah Chapter six begin, “In the year that King Uzziah died….” and proceed to describe just what it was like when God's presence filled the temple. What a way to worship. (Go ahead, read it. I'll wait.) Anchoring a year by identifying it as when so-and-so has died seems an odd
- [The Daily News {{a #poem}}](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-daily-news-a-poem/) - The Daily News “They came out of the tombs and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.” -Matthew 27:52,53 There it was buried, just a short paragraphNews so astounding I wanted to laugh.I’d never read it, but this time ‘twas clearHundreds of people once dead were right here.Walking
- [Life Moves in Circles--Not a Straight Line](https://jodyleecollins.com/life-moves-in-circles-not-a-straight-line/) - In a previous lifetime I spent many years in elementary classrooms and labored through daily routines required for young learners. One such activity was a calendar exercise where teachers dutifully pointed to a one-dimensional rectangular graph of squares labeled with days and numbers and names. “Today is……. Yesterday was….. Tomorrow will be….”, and the children
- [The Song of Your Life](https://jodyleecollins.com/the-song-of-your-life-2/) - Do you have a Life Verse, a Scripture that encapsulates your identity, sent from the heart of God to your ears? Mine is Psalm 45:1, "My tongue is the pen of a ready writer...” (You’ll find it at the bottom of this website.) However, I've been pondering lately, what would be my song? The melody
- [Writing the Book That You Need-Mining the Bright Birds](https://jodyleecollins.com/writing-the-book-that-you-need-mining-the-bright-birds/) - Last fall when the sky was cobalt blue and leaves were brilliant, flaming shades of amber and maroon (as they are wont to be here in the Pacific Northwest) I stole away for an overnight writing retreat. My goal was to cobble together a year's worth of poetry that hadn't seen the light of day
- [My Grandkids Asked Me- A Rhyming #Poem](https://jodyleecollins.com/my-grandkids-asked-me-a-poem-and-a-hello/) - Complaints are afoot in certain close quarters That my poems don’t rhyme, they’re merely imposters. The grandchildren ask me, “Is that how you write one? I’m not really sure, Nana, your kind’s the right one.” “There’re no matching endings, really no reasoning. It’s like eating roast beef without any seasoning. Tasteless and boring, and lacking
- [Pilgrim Verse-A Short Rhyme for the New Year](https://jodyleecollins.com/pilgrim-verse-a-short-rhyme-for-the-new-year/) - To hear me read this poem, click HERE. I am the map, I will show you the way Landmarks, sideroads, the places you'll stay. Then moving slowly, aware of the limits of speed that are posted; this journey-stay in it. I'll reveal the direction, post signs that you need Aware of your
- [How I Came to Poetry](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-i-came-to-poetry-2/) - The first poems I ever saved are from Mrs. Appy’s Ninth grade English class in a folder labeled simply ‘Poetry.’ 50 years later I can’t for the life of me locate it but I can see its contents--the ditto ink is faded but still quite legible. There are selections by Richard Brautigan and e.e.cummings, of course,
- [How to "Write" a Poem With Pictures](https://jodyleecollins.com/how-to-write-a-poem-with-pictures/) - There’s more than one way to write a poem. Folks often feel intimidated about how to write poetry—I get it; I’ve been there. But Art journaling offers a way to venture into expressing oneself with words and pictures both and thus create a poem, a made thing, (the definition of poem from the Greek word poiema).

## Pages

- [Home](https://jodyleecollins.com/) - I help parents and educators teach children how to make friends with poetry. Using my resources, guides and curated lists, you will have everything you need to introduce your child to the world of poetry, whether in the home or classroom.
- [Resource Library](https://jodyleecollins.com/resources-library/) - Using my resources, guides and curated lists, you will have everything you need to introduce your child to the world of poetry, whether in the home or classroom.
- [Books](https://jodyleecollins.com/books/) - Poetry has a way of helping us notice the world — its rhythms, seasons, and the quiet moments that shape us. Browse books that invite wonder, reflection, and a return to beauty.
- [Published Elsewhere](https://jodyleecollins.com/published-elsewhere/) - Jody Collins is the author of Mining the Bright Birds: Poems of Longing for Home, Emmanuel Poems: Verses for the Holidays, Hearts on Pilgrimage: Poems & Prayers, and Living the Season Well.
- [About](https://jodyleecollins.com/about/) - With 20+ years’ experience in classrooms and my own journey of writing, publishing, and teaching poetry, I want to invite others to make friends with poetry.
- [CONTACT](https://jodyleecollins.com/contact/) - Reach out to Jody Collins, Author, Poet & Teacher.
- [Poetry 101](https://jodyleecollins.com/resources-library/poetry-101/) - Poetry 101 Download here
- [How to Write a Limerick](https://jodyleecollins.com/resources-library/how-to-write-a-limerick/) - How to Write a Limerick Download here
- [Subscribe](https://jodyleecollins.com/subscribe/) - Are you a homeschool parent who wants to include poetry lessons in your teaching rhythms? A parent or grandparent who wants to discover good poetry books for your kids? A teacher or leader who wants to introduce poetry to your students? Well, you’ve come to the right place! Get Practical homeschool Tips, Curriculum Ideas and Free
- [Summer Poetry Ideas](https://jodyleecollins.com/resources-library/summer-poetry-ideas-for-kids/) - Summer Poetry Ideas Download here
- [the ABCs of writing a free verse poem](https://jodyleecollins.com/resources-library/abcs/) - the ABCs of writing a free verse poem Download here
- [9 Reasons to Read Poetry](https://jodyleecollins.com/resources-library/9-reasons-to-read-poetry-2/) - 9 Reasons to Read Poetry Download here
- [Shop](https://jodyleecollins.com/shop/)

## Products

- [Emmanuel Poems: Verses for the Holidays Digital Version](https://jodyleecollins.com/product/emmanuel-poems-verses-for-the-holidays-digital-version/) - Emmanuel means ‘God with us,’ Christ’s title that umbrellas the theme of these twelve poems. The subjects move slowly through the season of Christmastide, from Advent-a time of waiting and preparation-to Epiphany-Christ’s presentation to the world and our sending out to ‘go and tell.’ Poems begin with reflections on the challenges of the holiday season in
- [Emmanuel Poems: Verses for the Holidays Signed Chapbook](https://jodyleecollins.com/product/emmanuel-poems-verses-for-the-holidays-signed-chapbook/) - Emmanuel means ‘God with us,’ Christ’s title that umbrellas the theme of these twelve poems. The subjects move slowly through the season of Christmastide, from Advent-a time of waiting and preparation-to Epiphany-Christ’s presentation to the world and our sending out to ‘go and tell.’ Poems begin with reflections on the challenges of the holiday season in
- [Hearts on Pilgrimage: Poems & Prayers](https://jodyleecollins.com/product/hearts-on-pilgrimage-poems-prayers/) - “I’ve no chisel but this pen chipping at paper like stone” begins Hearts on Pilgrimage, but what a chisel author Jody L. Collins wields in this exquisitely sculpted collection of quiet poems that bring comfort, contemplation, and gratitude in difficult times. Her poetry echoes the seasons, from winter’s dormancy and spring’s new life to summer’s
- [Mining the Bright Birds: Poems of Longing for Home Paperback](https://jodyleecollins.com/product/mining-the-bright-birds-poems-of-longing-for-home-paperback/) - The manner in which we chart our lives is less a straight line on a calendar of days and more a song cycle moving upward into the future, circles growing closer as we move towards the center, where God is. Ecclesiastes declares we are made for a longing towards heaven, our true home, and so

## Categories

- [Life & Faith](https://jodyleecollins.com/category/life-faith/)
- [My Poems](https://jodyleecollins.com/category/my-poems/)
- [Poetry](https://jodyleecollins.com/category/poetry/)
- [Rhymes for Reflection](https://jodyleecollins.com/category/rhymes-for-reflection/)
- [Making Friends with Poetry](https://jodyleecollins.com/category/making-friends-with-poetry/)
- [FREE Poetry RESOURCES](https://jodyleecollins.com/category/making-friends-with-poetry/free-poetry-resources/)
- [Homeschool](https://jodyleecollins.com/category/homeschool/)

## Tags

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