john frederick (carry my bones -jwesyoder)

After she had driven off, John Frederick held his finger in front of his face. It quivered there like a candle, and he said, "Let me tell you something. Women, listen to me, are one of the two things in this world that has any power. You know what the other is? The Holy Spirit. That's right. And if one of them don't move you, you either sick or dead. That's what you been needing to know."


"Let me tell you something," he said and he took my wrist. "If a turnip grow, it's cause God told him to. And if a man die, it's cause God told him to go ahead and die. Aint that true? It is. No one chooses the time. Eben if you do it to yourself you're not choosing."

room wall art favs oh and cousin little

Like I have jet lag all the time

Sometimes lately I’ve felt like I’m losing it. Then I wonder how/why this is possible when I only work 3 times a week. But then I remember how I don’t sleep well in between and I have nightmares involving work and how badly I miss my family and how terribly I’ve dealt with Will being sick. And then I remember that this summer was the first one in my entire life in which I didn’t swim in the pool on Bancroft drive. Then I remember why I feel like a wreck some of the time.

cause it's all that you can know/do on this side of the blue

"And I stop trying to make heaben come to south Georgia before it supposed to. I start to wait. And i wait up and work. Nothing make me afraid anymore. I don't worry about the sun or the rain. Or what I eat or the kind of shoes on my feet. Death puts a shadow on eberyone I see. But it don't put one on me because I look at Glory. So i go on for 74 years and life bends me over like a reed... And I watch people get sick and when they die their family don't come to church anymore... and if something hurt my body, I say, "I know. I know I'm gonna hurt as long as I'm here." But I look down the line and take another step... And I say "i know, I know i'm gonna groan." And I bend like a reed under all of it, but I've heard about the weight of Glory. So I wait up for that day when all things become new. When the night be like day but the sun don't beat upon us and the One who is coming wipes all the tears out of eberybody's eyes. Then shall we go from strength to strength, and from glory to glory and no one gets tired and no one beats his breast and the hound lies with the coon. Amen. All right. Okay. yeah," he said quietly. "All right, that's right."

p 226 Carry My Bones

it's getting darker.... we dance alone this way

"I know He does, " he said. "sometime you talk to someone but they don't listen They neber ask you anything about the things you say. But God asks me things all the time. I tell Him one thing and He listen and think it ober. Then He ask me something about it." "I see," she said. "But you didn't ask Him why your wife disappeared?" "Yes I did," he said. "And i ask Him if He help me find her. And I told Him I was sad about it and I like to die instead of her. But i know that i lib in a place that's broke. And I know it's gonna stay broke until the man comes back to smooth out all the rough places. Ebery morning I wonder if it be the day. And I say "Amen, come Lord Jesus." And when i go to sleep and eberything still broke, and i still dont know where she went or if she dead, i don't curse God because He aint the one who made this place get sick. he just the one who's gonna get it well. So i wait up. "

-p222 Carry My Bones

serenaded hourly and celebrated dourly, waltzing with the open sea

"and i find a woman in a beanpatch with hair like a raincloud and i tell her if her hair fall out i lub her anyway"-- p227 Carry My Bones

you're skin is something i stir into my tea

and you are starry starry starry.. i'm tumbling down.

i am cold and waiting for the day to come.

and some machines are dropped from great heights lovingly, and some great bellies ache with many bumblebees. and they sting so terribly. there are some mornings where the sky looks like a road. mornings without warning....

jnewsom