Here’s the Thing…

Our very treasured things…

Things that testified to the best we could be

Things that bespoke our possibilities

Things that touched our deepest core

The parts of us we’d seldom share

   Passionate love letters secreted away

Aunt Stella’s beloved silver serving tray

That medal for valor earned in the war

A wisp of your first love’s hair in a jar

Old report cards full of A’s and B’s

The cracking parchment of your B.A. degree

Old bearer bonds worth a bit of money

A souvenir jar of now darkened honey

A baseball card signed by some bloke

A title deed when you once owned a boat

Packets of fading photos in albums or not

Newspaper articles, resumes, what-nots

So many things we collect like that

Safely tucked away, hoarded in fact

Accumulated parts of our ‘Fool’s Gold’

Our irreplaceable treasure troves

 

Now, there’s a thing right under our nose

An insignificant thing, we suppose

It doesn’t often make our top ten lists

Not a surprise that it’s always missed

So covered in dust, pushed to the back

On a bookshelf full of novelized dreck

When at our demise most things are trashed

Even given away, sold or just smashed

Typically, miraculously….ironic

Some families consider this thing iconic

That ‘Collection of letters’ we left

Encased in moldering leather, is kept

It notes the family’s births and marriages

All the babies born and even miscarriages

Retains notations on a family far flung

Knotting the ties that have come undone

But the profoundest story within them is deeper

And the family’s wise one knows it’s a keeper

For within is no less than an epic chronicle

Of God and humanity’s alpha-omega crucible

 

This collection of letters in the form of a book

Calls out to us…dares us to take a look

A fortune’s inside if you watch where you trod

No less than a cache of letters from God!

Within them the storied womb of mankind

Such knowledge as how the very sun shines

Its pages condense the wisdom of ages

Surpassing stargazers, magicians, seers, sages

There’s wisdom God shares with all earthly man

Within them even 7000 mentions of his name:

There in the Old Testament Hebrew…Y-H-W-H

We sound it out ‘Jehovah’, in English

They begin with how he and his son

Who became a ‘master worker’ bar none

Created the earth and man in their image

Then goes on to tell of man’s lineage

The stories inform if one is astute

Tells of prophecies fulfilled, warnings acute

Tells of God’s dismay and disappointment in us

How despite our shortcomings He loved us

The stories all match known places and history

God wanted us to know his purpose’s no mystery

They tell, not when, but how and why man ends

Tells things upon which everlasting life depends

Humbly sitting on that old dusty shelf

Is untold wealth available to each human self

Way beyond the value of old things we imbue

In the huge amount our short lifetimes accrue

But those things pale in ultimate significance

To that Book of Letter’s divine magnificence

Just sitting there waiting, within easy reach

O, the keys to God’s heart it can teach!

By Jahgirl

10/13/2017