Loving Out Loud

Have you seen the children in the city mall?

Empty eyes and empty purses,

empty hearts, mouths full of curses?

Blades ripped through their tattooed arm,

ever wondered why they want to harm

themselves?

Ever wondered why they turned to theft?

They once had a father who up and left,

leaving them with hearts bereft

of feeling,

seeking love?

Have you seen the lonely widow,

whose husband died or simply walked?

Since he’s gone she’s rarely talked

in depth or shared her needs

doesn’t want to moan or plead.

Her empty eyes watch hands do chores

Need-driven, worn out by the wars

Going on in her heart

                  Broken, rejected.

Or have you seen the young single parent?

Rarely a father, often a mother

offering her life to serve another

But at the end of all her strength?

Tense with kids who go to any length

to wind her up

                  - again.

What of the pensioner strolling the streets

hoping to meet a friendly face with time to spare.

People not busy who do give a care

who’ll listen and talk, and walk a while

who’ll share their life in return for a smile

But rarely do they find one

                  - a dying race.

Yes you can make a difference

Yes you can change a life.

Yes you can use your gifts

And yes you can end the strife.

You might help the body or you might sooth the soul

of an unloved person with a God-sized hole

who needs the touch of another’s skin

no matter the mess he’s wallowing in.

So how about it? Are you too proud

to help another? Let’s “Love Out Loud”.

We Are All Equal, But Not Equally Blessed,

Carole Stolz 25^th June 2010

Is 50 : 50 too much to ask?

I think that we’re up to the task.

Why do we have in excess,

if not to give to those with less?

What we have is a stewardship

- not to shop or go on a trip.

The only trip that we should make

is to visit the poor to see what’s at stake.

They are dying from H.I.V. Aids

or in the factories we have made

or as slaves in an Asian bed,

the light in the window the colour red.

It’s a marked contrast to life in the West.

Instead of nakedness, clothes of the best.

They are bare footed, we choose by colour

then walk through our Villas whilst they live in squalor.

Bins overflowing, where to with the waste?

An excess of rubbish wraps our expensive taste.

But for too many children, that is their home

- life on a rubbish tip which they daily roam

looking for tit-bits not eaten by worms,

shared with the dogs and invisible germs.

- Just to drive by is too much to bear,

so we turn away, we just don’t care.

And that’s what we do, whether here or there.

They’re invisible people, the ones who stare

at our gaudy dress and haughty air.

We’re not a tad better, we’re of equal worth

no matter where born on the planet earth

Whether a cleaner or a business Exec.,

beautiful or smashed up from a car wreck,

scattered through famine, displaced due to war,

rich in the suburbs or in the slums – poor.

We are all equal, but not equally blessed,

So stop feeding your greed, giving bones to the rest.

Examine your heart – what is your diagnosis?

Greed can be cured – give away in large doses! 

Gottes Geflüster

Carole Stolz

Hören, Zuhören - Hörst du mir zu?

Um das zu machen, braucht man ein ich und ein du.

Wenn ich ganz allein ist, hört ich gerne zu.

Mit eine zweite anwesend, denn eine gibt Ruh.

Hin und her, her und hin

Abwechslung nötig für diesen Sinn

Übung macht den Meister aber wollen wir das?

Alleine zu reden macht viel mehr Spass!

Kleinkinder verstehen nicht wie man das macht

Sie stolpern hinein, Pläne nicht durchdacht.

Schreit „ Mama und Papa jetzt hört mir mal zu!“

Aber was du ihn sagst ist vergessen im Nu.

Solch‘ Unterhaltung ist eine Einbahnstrasse.

Zeit und Geduld bringt man durch diese Phase.

Aber lernen wir wirklich in der Schule des Lebens,

Oder bleiben wir Kleinkind trotzt all unser Strebens?

Wenn wir als Kind-Gottes, neu geboren

mit Vatergott reden, ist alles verloren -

Sind schon wieder verstopft - unsere Ohren

Das „Ich“ will reden, und niemals gehorchen

„Ich will“, „Gib mir“ unsere trotzenden Bitten

Ganz im Vergessenheit die erlernten Sitten.

Wie „Zuhören“ und „still sein“ und „was willst Du mir sagen?“

Willst du wirklich eine Antwort auf all deine Fragen?

Das zuhören ist müssig, braucht Zeit und Geduld

Aber lohnt sich zu lernen - du bist es Gott schuld.

Er tat alles nötig um mit dir zu reden

Jetzt lies in sein Wort und lern richtig zu beten!

Und wenn du horchst, ganz leise und still

Da gibt es noch etwas das Gott von dir will.

Machst du auch das, was er zu dir sagt?

Weil hören mit Taten ist angesagt

In diese Welt gibt es so viele Schmerzen

Was Gott dringend braucht, ist Menschen mit Herzen

Sie sind seine Stimme und Ohren und Füße

und auch Gottes Hände und auch Gottes Küsse

Sie helfen und retten, befreien und füttern

Werden für Weisen zu Vätern, Geschwistern und Müttern

Du bist ganz wichtig, eine einmaliges Muster!

  - So sei jetzt still und offen für Gottes Geflüster.

Happy to Fear

Carole Stolz 7^th April 2010
As Adam and Mate the apple they ate

and choked, and dying became their fate.

Their minds were tainted.

Openness and lack of shame

turned to secrecy, shift of blame

accusations, truth painted.

And so today we can’t think straight.

Confused, puffed up, we learn to hate

the gifts which we should treasure.

So beautiful bodies, a great self worth

are sold out to sex and a dearth

of perversities all in the name of leisure.

Afraid to give we crave for more.

Afraid to worship, we adore

false images of God.

Like self and famous, pet and vices

Hobbies, sport, electric devices

Car, computer, i-pod.

Guilt free, joy and self secure

Given up for guilt and insecure

A poor exchange indeed!

Yet we don’t heed our altered state.

Afraid to love, we love to hate

Not knowing it’s You we need.

Happy to fear the exchange they made

in Eden on the day they traded

bliss for knowledge, caress for a fist.

And so we chase our empty dreams of happiness

and opening boxes full of pretty nothingness

We die, ill content, spent, on chasing a mist.

Human Trafficking, Albania-Western Europe

Anna’s trafficker kept her in submission through physical abuse – beating her, raping her, and slicing her with knives. He abducted her from Albania and took her to a Western European country, where she was forced into prostitution for about five months. He then took her to a second Western European country, where she told border authorities she was traveling on a falsified passport in hopes of getting help.The police sent her to a refugee camp where two Albanian social workers re- leased her back to her trafficker. During more than four years of subsequent forced prostitution in the second destination,Anna was made to undergo four abortions. When her trafficker was deported to Albania, five years after her initial abduction,Anna went to police with information about the trafficking ring.Two days later, she too was deported to Albania, where the trafficker continued his threats and abuse. Anna pursued prosecution of her trafficker in Albania, but he remains free. She has been denied residency and assistance from several Western European countries, including the ones in which she was exploited. She was able to resettle in the United States where she is continuing her rehabilitation and studying to become a nurse.

from the Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2010

Department of State, United States of America

Gone Fishing

Carole Stolz 18^th April 2010
Fishing has but one aim

always the same – to catch fish.

Not wishing just to influence,

hence the rod, the line, the hook.

No book on how to do it

hits the fish on the head,

...dead.

Patiently I fish, with intent,

bent on catching them.

So men and women with time might bite.

Contrite in their sinfulness, they confess;

possess no thought except consuming need

to heed Jesus. Then comes the next part

heart renewal.

For once a fish realises,

he idolises the wrong deities,

pleases the wrong lords,

hoards the wrong things,

thinks the wrong thoughts,

ought to love others, not self.

That wealth is not for personal gain,

but to relieve pain. A renewal of values

looses his hold on the old life.

Knowing now that he had been dead

instead of, as he thought, alive.

That to survive, he must die… to self.

That health is rasping after life in God as after air.

Dare he do it?

The knife glistens in the sun.

Done with possessions

and other obsessions he willingly bares

and it tears him wide apart

His heart and all that was within spurts out –

a shout of freedom, released from bodily restraint,

the Saint lives again

in Him.

And as with death, there is no turning back.

now lacking the stomach for worldly ways,

in a daze of emptiness, innards gutted, yes, ripped apart,

but with a new heart, the new life he starts

set apart, one with God, at peace, with purpose and Godly desire

fired up – to do good works,

prepared by God,

Long ago.

The Bubble of God’s Love

The Bubble of God’s Love

(For my dear friends Chuck and Linda Lynch)

Carole Stolz, 4^th April 2010

The baby slides into the world into the perfect bubble.

Mum and Dad adoringly protect her from the trouble

as in her childhood, safe, secure she crawls and sits and stands

then totters her first step amidst applause from all her fans.

But later on at five or six or nine, eleven or fourteen

it may be when she fails at school or makes bad choices courting.

Cruel and hard reality will pop her perfect dream

the nightmare starts and unprepared, suddenly she’s weaned.

For quite a while she searches all perversions purpose-seeking

sex and drugs and alcohol, her bubble it’s past leaking

as hopelessness, loneliness, depression fear and pride

all plague her and her heart it breaks somewhere deep inside.

Memories of the perfect bubble haunt her waking hours

till one day she encounters God and feels his healing powers.

A decision stands before her just like a watershed

in one direction the choice of life

in the other she stays dead.

She must decide to follow or choose the loneliness forever

without God’s hand protecting her as from rain does an umbrella.

She turns around and runs inside the bubble she so craves

And God the Father welcomes her and at this birth he saves.

The bubble‘s not naivety but innocence instead

It’s about a loving marriage and not cheap sex in bed

It’s all about contentment, not public image, perfect face.

It’s a life of resting in his love not striving to earn grace.