Beyond the black lace of the neighbor’s trees
Traced against a glowing sky,
A thin slice of burnished gold fires the horizon.
Slight gray clouds stretch like the fingers of a great, invisible hand,
Spanning from that gold to the pastel blue overhead.
Orange curls along the edges of scalloped balls,
Streaks the long slivered slices,
Filling the gray heavens with warming light.

Worn only slightly by the five hundred and forty miles of the day’s travel,
I stand with Ben in this backyard marveling at the this unexpected painting,
Watching until the latest faint traces fade from the sky.

Following the blessing of this night’s rest,
We will begin work tomorrow,
Tearing out what is old and damaged,
Replacing what is weak and rotted ,
And putting in the new.

It is always more work to remodel,
To rehabilitate,
To make new what life has damaged.
Easier to build fresh.
But by the work of our hands
And with the skill and strength that God has allowed,
We will tear out the old,
Replace it with something good,
Something worthy,
Something beautiful.

By his own hands and in his own ways,
The Lord does often renew and replenish
The handiwork of the heart,
The sculpting of the soul,
The renewing of the spirit.

It is hard work to make right
What has been damaged and degraded by life,
Often compounded by careless choices
And the clamoring of wrong voices.

It is hard work, yes,
But the task is well-suited to the skill and spirit,
To the loving of this labor
So often seen in the nail-scarred hands
Of the Carpenter of Our Souls
Who knows quite well the replacing of what is decayed
With the glory and goodness of what he has made.



H. Arnett
11/16/23