Tag: Inspiration

The Teacup of Today

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”  Psalm 118:24

 In the midst of a frenzied afternoon at work today, I paused to read an email from my daughter Amy:

“I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot lately:  “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”  The last two words, “in it”, are what have me thinking. The phrase makes it seem like it’s a special place – a porcelain cup, specially made, specially prepared – to rejoice, to revel, to live fully in — when you are in something like a cup of tea, surrounded.”

Any given second, any given breath, we are within the walls of a day. We can’t see tomorrow – and so we can only treat it with what we can’t see – with hope (but how great is our hope when we think about Jesus)? We see only today, and our hands, and our feet, and our loved ones, and whatever else God has given us for today. “

What Amy wanted to tell me is that today is not only a special time, but a unique and wondrous place designed by God for us to live and breathe in.

The porcelain teacup of today.

I smile at the thought of today and of pink porcelain cups.

D. G. Vachal (c) 2012, 2025

“Of Bread and Hunger”

by D. G. Vachal 2
The days ride the chariot of the whirlwind:
tomorrow’s sun is yet to be appointed —
you hold this moment’s gold, this second’s gem.

Today is bread that feeds your hunger,
strength for constricted hands
that throb to open to those in need,
(always, there are those in need)
bestow kindness even to those unkind.

Give, give of this bread,
this bread of today,
each broken crumb of every fleeting second,
scatter with abandon to reach
the hungry mouths,
even the birds of the air,
the beasts of the field —

As you give of your daily bread,
verily you will be fed.

D. G. Vachal © 2014

“Swept by Surprise to Moonlit Shores”


Swept by Surprise to Moonlit Shores

Is there a weeping too deep
for the knowing,
when beauty seeps into the open
pores of the soul,
descends to the ocean floors
of our breathing,
swept by surprise to moonlit shores
by irregular tides —

Beauty astounds,
ruffles the colors of the corals,
disrupts the nettled pearling
of the oysters,
arrests
the wanderings of hermit crabs,
the tapestral flowering of anemones
upon the glaucous-velvet rocks —

Underneath, where it is very deep,
the blinding light dazzles,
it reaches upwards
to interminable heights,
from the tide pool to the far distance
where ancient stars blossom
incandescent pink —

Tell me,
are there waters warm enough,
is there salt enough
to mold the tears that fall
from the wonder of it all?

by D. G. Vachal © 2013

Author’s Note:  My allusion to looking from the tide pool to the stars is inspired by  John Steinbeck’s words in his book “Log of the Sea of Cortez: “It is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again.”

*** Image by Luis Argerich @ Flickr Commons