By Josh “The Stove” Meints

Not even Time knows what time will tell
A whim of a whim on the edge of the universe
Ever extending like a bottomless well
Into the darkness and parts unknown
Letting out light ’till emptiness, overgrown

Secrets and treasures are found, never unlocked
They lay silent, not still
‘Till Time, on their door, knocks
Then wonders be shown
And mind be blown
‘Till time unravels
And ceases all travels

All will be still and silent
Darkness shan’t waver
If only for a moment
Twixt verses, we haver

And all of a sudden
New Time will alight
Putting into motion
A new verse, bright

By Anthony James Davis

How vividly and terribly
The moment seemed to last
When, last night, on the jost’ling street
Of dreams I passed my past.
He looked quite thin and half forgot
Though dressed up all the same,
Stopping his slow sad walk he stared
As if to place my name.
I did not yield the moment sought,
But hurried on my way;
Half sick with shame and fear of what
His open mouth might say.
Then out the corner of my eye
That cannot help but see,
I noticed his face fall again
And turn away from me.
In spite of reason I was stung
To see him sagging so,
But I had brilliant things to do,
And he no place to go.
How vividly and terribly
The moment seems to last
When on the twilight thoroughfare
Of dreams I passed my past.
I had the most peculiar sense
I’d left him there to die,
Although I have no grounds for this
Save for his haunting eye…

By Hannah Ailes

I am greatly confused
my mind feels so abused.
What is this great fight,
over my mind’s plight?
One thought says yes
One thought says no,
another thought says maybe
the other one says I don’t think so

God why can’t you give me a clue?
This clue I will so longingly pursue!
I want to skip the hard rotten times
I just want to hear those joyful chimes!

I have heard from godly men
that you will guide us
because we have asked you
to be inside us.
but this must be a myth
because I am still waiting on you

God why can’t you give me a clue?
This clue I will so longingly pursue!
I want to skip the hard rotten times
I just want to hear those joyful chimes!

This I have learned from many days
of me waiting on you to act
it’s not only you that does stuff…
it’s me that should learn how to react
to these separate thoughts that keep coming my way
to these several things that have lead me astray
the only way I can learn this
is by watching for things that bewareingly are amiss
these things should not be in my brain
so my authentic beauty can no longer be stained

God, trust is the treasure I need now
not clarity, not fame, not to be proud
Yes trust is the greatest treasure to pursue
this trust will lead me nearer to you

I have longed for clarity for too long
The hard rotten times will forever come
no matter which way I turn or run
the best thing that I can do
is learn discernment, hope, and God’s true love
the only way I can learn to do what I’ve stated
is by praying, listening, reading what God has baited

God, trust is the treasure I need now
not clarity, not fame, not to be proud
Yes trust is the greatest treasure to pursue
this trust will lead me nearer to you

These are not myths but words of truth
don’t yearn for clarity
yearn for trust, surrender, and wisdom
trust will capture God’s heart
clarity will make one depart
God doesn’t want things easy
neither does he wants things cheesy
God isn’t training a robot for life
He is training a neatly knit together individual
one He created, one he sees through
one he can say with GREAT passion
“I LOVE YOU!”

God, trust is the treasure I need now
not clarity, not fame, not to be proud
Yes trust is the greatest treasure to pursue
this trust will lead me nearer to you

By Josh “Stove” Stover

I sat up in my bed and as I looked out the window, I realized that it was the first day of the “Year of the Greymen.” I thought myself lucky to be alive for the experience.  Legend had it that every 766 years the entire Earth would become shrouded in the fog of the Greymen.  The fog supposedly would stay for one full year, and in it the Greymen would roam.  Most people thought it was a curse, but nobody really knew.  My dreary life at this point seemed like an endless, dull corridor, but this day I felt something other than monotony and meaninglessness that I usually felt upon waking.

I stared out my window into the fog.  I wondered what the day would bring and for the first time in a long time I had hope.  I had hope that there was something more to my boring life.  I kept scanning the fog and before long I found what I sought.  At first there were just two yellow, glowing dots hovering amidst the fog.  The glowing orbs drew closer and I realized they were eyes belonging to the strangest thing I had ever laid my own on.  The creature stood, hunched over, around ten feet tall.  It had a long torso, two squat legs, and two long, skinny arms with hands that had three thin, lanky fingers on each.  Its arms were so long that, as it walked toward my window the backs of its hands dragged across the ground.  It kept walking straight up to my window and my heart pounded so hard I felt like it was trying to jump right out of my chest.  The thing stood about a foot from my window staring at me as I sat in my bed.  I could not help but stare for a moment in disbelief.  Its head was round with two holes on either side where ears would be on a human head.  A small lump with two holes in it resembled a nose and it had no mouth, but an indentation where one should have been.

I sprang out of bed, throwing my covers to the floor, and ran to the window.  I stared into the creature’s bright eyes and saw many things that were not foreign to me; sorrow, emptiness, and fatigue.  Like me, this creature was looking for something, some kind of fulfillment or purpose, perhaps.  It turned away and I watched as it disappeared back into the fog.  I grabbed yesterday’s blue jeans and t-shirt and struggled to put them on while hopping toward the front door.  There was no time for a shower, or even a quick rinse with mouthwash.  I checked my pockets to make sure my keys and wallet were on my person, and I ran outside letting the door slam shut behind me.  I sprinted in the direction of which I saw the creature fade into the fog, and quickly realized how out of shape I had become in the past four years.  I stopped when I noticed that the fog was so thick I could not see a thing except the immediate ground I was standing on, which currently, was grass.  Panting and sweating, I looked around and noticed several sets of yellow eyes encased by large silhouettes.  The light from their eyes lit an eerie vertical halo around their faces.  They were all moving closer to me, and as they drew in I noticed more and more silhouettes emerging from the fog.

The creatures were communicating with each other through moans, groans, grunts and various wheezing noises.  One of the creatures came especially close to me, its hands dragging along the grass, and it stood still directly in front of me.  At this point I noticed that hundreds of the things had surrounded me and a chill went down my spine and then spread trough my arms and legs to my fingers and toes.  The apparition in front of me had pale, grey skin that looked very course and dry.  It had no hair, fur, or anything of the like anywhere on its body.  I reached out to touch it, but as soon as my hand came close, the creature vaporized into the fog and as soon as I put my hand back at my side, it reappeared in the same spot.  It began making a guttural humming sound akin to a growl, but changing pitches.  To my astonishment, it was humming a melody.  The multitude of creatures around me joined in and harmonized and I felt a chill down my spine once more, but this time it was different.  The music hit my body with a tidal wave of emotion and I began to tremble.  The song coursed through my body like a drug and I fell to my knees.  The music transformed and grew louder and more intense and visions began to infiltrate my mind.

I saw an ancient civilization among a network of enormous trees that had been built by the Greymen.  They grew them and then twisted and bent them into each other and hollowed the limbs out to make what looked like homes of some sort.  Time sped backward and I saw these creatures rising up mountains, carving valleys, and filling lakes and oceans.  They sculpted waterfalls, dug out caves, and painted clouds into the sky.  They were masters of art and beauty and they worked with impeccable precision.  Suddenly, the music and visions stopped, although it felt unresolved.  I stood to my feet and they all started walking in the same direction.

Driven by my curiosity and the fact that I thought there were more pieces to the puzzle, I followed them.  I mulled over the fresh images of the ancient civilization as we walked on for over an hour until we arrived at a place that was familiar to me.  It was a body of water called Clear Lake and it was the largest lake in the area.  The creatures gathered around the edge of the lake and began humming again, but this time it was more like a chant. I saw the fog over the lake become steadily denser until I could not even tell that there was a lake in front of me.  Then the incantation stopped and the fog rolled away and revealed a twisted forest just like those in the vision.  The gargantuan trees were magnificent to behold and I felt something changing inside me while I looked upon them.  They proceeded into the woods, and once more I followed.  From the outside all that could be seen were the massive, skyscraping trees, but inside the forest were many more odd types of foliage.  Among the more peculiar was another type of tree that was very short with a wide trunk.  The squat trees were bent and distorted and had twisted, mangled branches that wore black leaves.  This part of the forest was very dark for all outside light had been blocked out by the towering trees above, but the trees themselves provided their own source of dim, eerie light from somewhere within their trunks.  We came to a place where three gnarled trees were positioned in a triangle. The three trees were bent toward each other and in the center their branches had grown together in a giant knot and extended upward together.

Like any competent person I assumed it was prominent, so I went and stood in the middle of the creepy structure to inspect it.  As soon as I arrived in the center the fog sifted into the woods and began to gather around me until it became as dense as it had been outside the forest.  They started to hum the same song that they had earlier and I was immediately whisked away into my subconscious.  I saw the universe from afar and was drawn into it and passed by everything as it first began, created by God.  There were galaxies, quasars, nebulae, stars, planets, asteroids, gasses – everything you can think of and more.  I passed by it all and arrived at Earth.  It was just a shell; a planet without form.  The first thing to arrive was the Greymen who began sculpting the planet by God’s instruction.  As I drifted through space and time I witnessed the beginning of creation.  The last thing the Greymen created was the forest civilizations, and then there was a catastrophic disaster, and the avatars were wiped from the face of the Earth.

Shortly after, God created man, and man lived peacefully in the woods for a time, until they were spoiled by evil.  God cast them out and hid the forests from them while He decided what he would do with His people.  Something had finally awoken inside me – the awareness of the existence God and the motivation to live.  The Greymen were ghosts or sprits that had been allowed to return only every 766 years so that they could deliver a message.  The music resolved and I regained consciousness.  The fog rolled away, and as it did the Greymen dispersed into it.  I spent some time in the forest, alone.  I played the visions in my mind over and over again as I climbed the great trees and explored the web of branches that were peppered with tree-homes.  After several hours I decided I would go home and write their story.  When I left the forest the fog enveloped it and it became Clear Lake once again.  It’s up to you whether you believe my story or not, but I know what I saw, and it has given me the motivation to enjoy life once again.  I don’t know whether on not the Greymen will ever return, but maybe someday mankind will be allowed to return to where we were meant to live.

For He commands even the wind and the water, and they obey Him?”

A photo by Nicole Specht

He makes all things new.

A photo by Tonya Hartman.

By Sarah Inderlied

Today, as the Sun was raised to midday, my eyes met a charming stranger. He sent me an invitation which read: “You are cordially invited to accompany alongside of me, while we stroll amongst these glowing lanes at this most DEFINITIVELY beautiful time of the day.”

As I peered up at the sky I noticed how the Sun seemed to relentlessly Shine, bringing to life the diamonds which filled the sky. “Diamond-filled skies.” I gave myself a moment to ponder at the thought. I smile softly, even filled with a slight bit of hidden humor inside, at the thought of how extravagant this sight was for my eyes which became momentarily glued to the kaleidoscope-entrancing sky.

I accepted His offer without even the slightest bit of declination to be detected. We shook hands as if to close the deal to our compromise. From dusk until dawn we found ourselves continuing our stroll on.

The consistency of our conversation was mainly that of our own personal songs, giving one another the chance to sing our solo without the interruption of the other singing along. Although, if I might add, I always did enjoy sing-a-longs, like Old McDonald Had a Farm. I guess I am referring back to when my days were still young (-er). Now it feels as if I’ve spent too many years giving too much effort in trying to sing along.

Anyway, farewells came and went, and off in our own directions we were both sent. Only one thing He said continued to resonate within the boundaries of my mind. Playing like an old scratched record, skipping over and over, making itself right at home within my head.

“Keep your head held high and then maybe you will finally see acceptance for yourself in someone else’s eyes. Don’t look down, even if you feel your worth hit and shatter as it drops into the hands of the ground. This way I hope and pray that you will begin to keep your vision faced forward, with no intentions of looking back into your past; memories of those lowlifes who kicked your worth around and even went as far as to stomp it into the ground. I see clearly into your heart and it tells me you deserve so much more than you give yourself credit for. Trapped within the shadow of this masked person which you think you are. Look up towards the sky. My gift to you is each and every shining star, in the midst of the nighttime sky, to remind yourself of who you really are.”

After giving my stranger’s word more than a moment to sink in, well below my goose bump-covered skin, I heard a still, small voice barely catching it as if it were a whisper caught within the wind, “Take a hint…”, it said, inviting me politely to lift my head.
The stars no longer seemed distant and scattered, holding the appearance that I may be lost within a dream. Each star now had its own spotlight reaching down through the atmosphere, which I once saw to be a barrier. Its Light directed my path and even lit the stage for me to sing my solo if another stranger just so happens to cross my path.
Now I must close my eyes and fall fast asleep before I find myself lying in bed, eyes wide awake, gazing at the fence as each consecutively numbered sheep leaps as I reap.

I claim victory as I end my days—Oh, what sweet days!—of counting sheep. Jesus tells me He will gladly bless my sleep, saturating me with His peace. As I lower myself to my knees, beside my bedside, I take the time to say my goodnight prayers. I thank Him only for the stranger who so humanely showed me where I had lost my worth. Amen and with that said we meet The End, my friend.