Janet Benlien Reeves

Posts

On Risk: Two Poems

Risk Averse Resist the inclination to Invite potential friends over. Stay indoors alone, and Kill the urge to explore. Avoid touching surfaces, even skin, or Vanquish germs with disinfectant. Exercise caution when breathing. Restrain desire for delectable, but deadly dishes. Save yourself until death’s day, Enjoying nothing while you wait. Risk Assessment Love requires risk, results in rapture or unrequited romance. Let go of the trapeze. No net—only hands to hold or deadly freefall. Come out of the shadows of self-preservation. Introduce your authentic to find those who relate to you. Rejection reveals relations not for you. Risk it to move past it until love comes. * * * Top Photo by Taiyou on Unsplash Bottom Photo by Camden & Hailey George on Unsplash

The Hawk and the Seagull

Observation While driving home from the grocery store the other day, I saw the most curious drama playing out in the sky just above the road before me. Just below where a seagull was circling, a hawk circled, too. They were turning in sync as if they were participating in a Regency era dance where partners keep each other at arm’s length. Every now and then, though, the gull would dive, the hawk would block its descent, and the gull would rise to circle again, the hawk mirroring its movements just below, an ongoing part of their dance. As they circled, they followed the path of the road before me, so I found myself following them until they reached the open field of an intermediate school near my home, where we parted ways. Speculation Because our town recently hired a young man with two trained birds of prey to teach the seagulls in our coastal hamlet to stay away from shopping areas, I wondered if the hawk was his. I have been wanting to see this spectacle since ...

What's a Girl to Do?

I don’t think I understood the assignment. I only wish I could remember the story behind the picture, but I’m guessing my expression is somehow related to the flowery headband. Today’s expression captured in pictures or forced frills will be the same. What’s a girl to do on Father’s Day when she no longer has a living dad? One clear snapshot has impressed itself on my mind today, one that now only exists in my mind. I wonder if Dad carried the memory, too—he and I were the only ones in the foreground of this image, a moment that only belonged to us. I don’t know how old I was—older than three because we lived on Gamma Street. Not so old as five. I suspect events leading up to this moment had something to do with sibling jealousy over my brother’s arrival and the resulting demands on my mother’s time, but that is unclear. I was going through a mommy phase. I wanted Mommy to tuck me in at night. I wanted Mommy to carry me around. I wanted Mommy, just Mommy. I wanted nothing to do wit...

Inspiration: an Acrostic

I question my perception, Never certain of Your Sovereign will, specific Purpose ordained for my life. I waffle one way, then another— Reaching for defined direction All while Your Spirit speaks Through nature, news, fellowship, Word. I stop. See You in action, summoning Only as You, my beloved Abba, can. Nebulous struggle recedes. * * * Photo by Ana Municio on Unsplash

The Author

Lord, this is not how I would write this story were it mine. I acknowledge you’re the Author, yet you gave creative license to one who flounders, finding the pen too heavy to hold, making scribbles where clear cursive lettering should be— according to me. Please spotlight your hand hovering under his, waiting too long, in my opinion, for him to return writing right to you. And while I’m praying, Lord, here’s my pen, too. * * * Photo by Stephen Tettey Atsu on Unsplash

Faith: the Ultimate Wager

When I was in college, one of my professors used to say something to the effect that faith is going out on a limb with all your eggs in one basket. My classmates and I would laugh while looking at each other in alarm and shifting uncomfortably in our seats. We were ministry students set on following Jesus and leading others to do the same. Still, the metaphors made us think. There was more to it, though. As I remember it, my professor said that if there was any uncertainty, he liked the outcome he faced if he was wrong better than the outcome unbelievers face if they are wrong. We couldn’t argue with that logic. I learned just yesterday that this argument for faith has a name: prudential apologetics (Phillips 347). Essentially, the person trying to convince an unbeliever to believe argues that it’s prudent to believe because they have a lot less to lose by believing than they risk by refusing to believe. This is also known as Pascal’s Wager, named for Blaise Pascal, a French philos...