we are always at the plate

 baseball and life

around 18-21, we're supposed to be adults,

but there is no magic in the transformation,

as if, all of a sudden, we "get it":

how to vote, how, or not, to drink,

how to commit to relationship

and maybe to serve partner and children with our choices,

but we are batters, life is like a pitcher,

and we have to deal with curve balls,

if we're lucky, we get a hit 30% of the time,

despite our best efforts, we often strike out,

our challenge is to still come to the plate

and do our best even with the odds against us.

by Henry H. Walker

May 18, ‘26

paths up the mountain

 different paths, the same goal

the Jesus I know from the New Testament is unequivocal:

we should love others, just as we love ourselves,

his words don't dilly-dally,

they press us to love even our enemies,

to take care of any that might be deemed "lesser,"

to connect with children by caring

"for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven,"

is God in 3 persons? or not?

can revelation come clearly to any? or only to certain "elect"?

is there only one path to the Divine? or many?

such variety of answer far too often has led to death,

for we have convinced ourselves

that only the path that we are on is right,

and that the others have lost themselves to Satan,

thus damned be they whose truth stretches to where we don't want to go,

instead, I think our differences should reinforce our commonality,

each of our opinions matters for God made us each unique

and gifted us with free will, and we are united

in our hopes to be true to the most basic and real,

consider an international potluck:

the foods are different and find their own paths to our stomachs,

but each cuisine nurtures us

whether it be rice, or soy, or meat,

or a plethora of vegetables,

the way to our health can vary,

a truth that is expressed within the Hindu tradition:

a concept that God is at the top of a mountain

and that each religion is one path to the top,

we should celebrate any of us

who are working to ascend the mountain,

whatever the path that calls to us,

God does not care how we get there

as long as we carry love with us.

by Henry H. Walker

May 19, ‘26

the world and the soul

 "of the Kingdom of Heaven"?

I have the luxury, and the challenge,

of wearing different hats,

different perspectives from which to consider it all,

this week I am called by the history major within me,

who combines with the dutiful son, cousin, nephew,

so I search for the mechanism through which

to see, to appreciate, to chronicle

the worlds of our parents,

plus a bit of the worlds within which we now live,

as we seek to express and to honor

what they hoped for us to be with our lives,

today's reality is driven by the capitalist truth

that the bottom line shouts profit,

of choosing whichever way maximizes growth,

though the "growth" is usually of the material,

and unfortunately not of the spiritual,

for how can "enlightenment" give me a better steak?

our parents were badly burned by the Great Depression,

and the surviving of the psychic and material challenges of it and World War II,

we have a different problem now:

how to save our souls

when our bodies are doing well,

the Bible speak to us now, and hopes for us,

to spend more time on the heart and less on the body,

as Mark cautioned, 

"What profiteth a man to gain the whole world and to lose his soul?"

with my cousin I sought to remember and to honor our parents,

and to let us appreciate how much our souls need to be loved and nurtured,

for, like children, "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

by Henry H. Walker

May 20, ‘26

how to see the glass

 

optimist vs pessimist

when considering the entirety of a person,

what should you include?

certainly the positive, the accomplishments,

how the heart and love worked through them,

what a difference they made with the moments allowed to them,

but what about the absences? the mistakes?

when they chose to follow the lesser within them?

negative values can seem to intrude upon hearts and thoughts,

I am an optimist,

I love people,

I love my relatives,

I see the glasses as half-full,

but what about the half-emptiness of the glass?

that's the perspective I fall into when I consider myself,

I remember playing Trivial Pursuit with my mother-in-law,

she knew many categories far better than I did,

but she dismissed that understanding as just common,

for which she deserved no credit,

instead I saw her as a master,

for what she considered, she knew well,

and each absence in her to me was as nothing,

just as each presence was impressive,

when we look at ourselves,

when we look at others,

how much should we notice the presence

 and how much should we notice the absence?

I want to hold both, and at the same time

 I want to appreciate the effort,

the goodness of the soul,

wanting to be true to that of God in them.

by Henry H. Walker

May 16, ‘26

resisting the default of chaos

 to partner with emerging order

I just finished a writing,

so I looked up, 

pointed up,

and thanked the universe

for the gift that came to me upon the page,

I feel that the impulse of the universe

toward order and meaning

is not blind, like gravity,

not just an inexorable push 

toward creating larger wholes,

but a drive that needs partners,

when I work to craft my words toward truth,

I work to harmonize with an underlying reality

that loves to act and help bring organization

into the universe's default of chaos.

by Henry H. Walker

May 22, ‘26

a double-edge

 Imagination

what a double-edge to that word, to that sword!

start with the eternal moment,

the now that feels like it will always exist,

I see a herd of herbivores,

watch one culled out and taken by a carnivore,

then the others go back to living in the moment,

no focus on the fear of "what if. . . "

we humans are gifted with realizing we are mortal,

so we foresee when we no longer are,

how can consciousness understand its absence?

long ago we got an upgrade to our operating system, 

imagination, so that we can look forward

and create scenarios out of of possibilities,

considering death, we can continue in memory of others,

maybe still be ourselves when the transporter beams us to Heaven,

or just not exist,

the gift of this upgrade allows us story, literature,

elaborate renderings of possibility,

sometimes to enchant us,

sometimes to scare the "bejeezus" out of us,

there is an enduring feel to memory,

to the creating of story,

whether in the telling of tale

or in the retelling of one's life and work,

at the heart of all is the present moment,

and all the cusps that throb with possibility before us,

I love that we are gifted with imagination,

but I feel it can stab us

even while it makes our world deeper, larger, better.

by Henry H. Walker

May 22, ‘26

visiting with a cousin

 my cousin and I

today I visited on Zoom with a cousin,

the youngest child of an uncle and aunt of mine,

his father and my mother were wonderfully close,

my mother was second living daughter in her family,

his father the oldest son,

their mother as warm, and loving, and strong, as I can imagine,

her two younger sisters called my mother "Little Mother,"

for Jean mirrored Grandmother in helping raise the family,

similarly, Alvin worked to be provider, protector,

when the Great Depression broke their father, and he died,

the goal today was to express and record what we could

of the lives of our parents' generation,

of how we in the days we are allowed

hope to be true to the brilliance of their souls,

and to how we might live to honor who they were

and what they hoped for us to be,

my cousin talked of wanting to grow blackberries

to reprise the cobblers he remembered Aunt Jean making at the cabin,

he spoke of the charge he felt to treat others

with the care, and love, and understanding,

he felt his parents taught him

with every fiber of who they were,

each day he described looking back on his day

and hoping he did his best to honor them with his day,

my cousin is still the kid at heart I enjoyed growing up with,

his eyes dance with the memories of his early formative years,

and he seems to feel a solid connection with his younger self,

he is a son who labors to be true to his parents,

I hope to see both of us as true to the best within us,

so that the tomorrows we work to build

are true to the images we have within 

of what our parents hoped for.

by Henry H. Walker

May 18, ‘26