Arroyos
My Life in Prose and Poetry
Arroyo is a Spanish word that translates to brook; a wash or ‘crik’ as the cowboys refer to it down here on the desert. It is usually bone-dry, a ‘dry stream’ if you will; but water still flows below the surface during the dry times, as with our historic San Pedro river. Often dry, by God’s grace, our arroyos will flow full, bank to bank after long-awaited rain fall, our great monsoons! We desperately need those rains and flowing arroyos for our survival as they fill our subterranean aquifers. We have an arroyo that runs across our beloved home ranch – Rancho Ryan! It flows right under an old Shaggy Bark Juniper that’s estimated to be 1200 to 1500years old by a tenured Professor Arborist from the University of New Mexico.
My poetry, while written more recently, has often flowed following periods of spiritual dryness or hard trials and tribulations, like my treasured monsoon rains. And I’ve often written during the bountiful times, the Monsoons of grace in my life. There is no ‘on/off’ button for my writing, just as there is none for our desperately awaited monsoon rains. I leave on and off buttons to the Holy Spirit and to nudges from the world around me. I pray my writings bring spiritual waters to your life.
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Morning Has Broken!
He is risen! Христос воскрес! The burial cloths, folded on the stone-cold slab which lay bare this glorious morning, testify “This tomb is empty!” The great stone sealing the cavern is rolled away, unable to fulfill its grim duty. Death could not hold Him and neither could you! Early morning light rolls over the outer…
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Covenants and Holy Ground
The ancients and holy ones trembled to approach the Holy of Holies – the Ark of the Covenant for fear of offending God. The Ark held the the most sacred of artifacts: the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, a jar of Manna from Israeli desert wanderings, and the Staff of Aaron which had…
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Quo vadis Domine?
Whither goest thou Lord? “Simon, Simon! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail, and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers.” (St Luke 22:31). Our Blessed Lord, in what was the beginning of His last Will and Testament,…
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Midnight Musings
I look beyond the stars, beyond the galaxies, beyond the light-years uncountable. Farther, farther, farther – to the edges of space. Back, back, – to the first tick of time. And You are there! Already knowing, seeing – yes, even loving me! Yet Mystery so sublime, though You are older than the hoary crags of…
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Yahweh as loving and tender Father
“There, you saw (in the wilderness), how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his child, all along the road you have travelled until you reached this place.” (Deut. 1:31) Father, I have too often failed to see and feel Your steady, guiding hand along the way, your arm firm around my…
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A Divine Paradox
I, Stephen Ryan, a mere mortal, can neither run to God nor run away from Him. For how can I draw near to the One Who is infinite and glorious Light unapproachable? And how can I flee from the One Who formed me in my mother’s womb; the One Who knows my every thought, Who…