{"id":2213,"date":"2021-03-01T21:01:11","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T21:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/?p=2213"},"modified":"2022-04-06T13:49:45","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T13:49:45","slug":"family-visits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/poetry\/family-visits\/","title":{"rendered":"Family visits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Listen to the poem<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/18145250\/height\/90\/theme\/custom\/thumbnail\/yes\/direction\/backward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/87A93A\/\" height=\"90\" width=\"100%\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"\" mozallowfullscreen=\"\" oallowfullscreen=\"\" msallowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n<br>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spellbound we sat in the Kindom of Zoom\u2014<br>You there and we here, as across from each other<br>In the same living room, and not in mere ether\u2014<br>Across from each other in this very room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before last Palm Sunday, we languished in gloom,<br>While thinking ahead to when death\u2019s wings would hover<br>Over us all, our lives almost over,<br>We standing ourselves on the edge\u2014well, of doom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Blind force may have plotted our lives from the womb,<br>But perhaps on account of the dreams of our mother<br>And those whom we cherish who love one another,<br>Light shines on the other side of the tomb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We dreamed, I suppose, that the shadows that loom<br>At our end are but signals that angel wings hover<br>Above us, and that\u2014although life may be over\u2014<br>Our prospect for joys to be had may balloon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The thought that we talked with our dead was a spume.<br>Between us a great gulf was fixed\u2014though, dear brother,<br>We acted as though we could talk with each other,<br>As freely as water flows down from a flume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But now April flowers have started to bloom\u2014<br>As so it would seem in this life and hereafter.<br>We here and you there, voices rise to the rafter<br>On earth as in heaven. All praise then to whom?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our praise for such visits will rise like a plume.<br>They give us\u2014these visits\u2014the excellent flavor<br>Of joys conversational we so much favor<br>They rival the pleasure of bride and bridegroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Note from the poet: <em>This poem is about my experience of a new thing, a new way of communicating with family during a pandemic without exposing each other to the disease. The experience of this new thing is for me profoundly spiritual\u2014a foretaste of heaven which, I now see, can be had while we are still in this life, involving interaction both with those who have died and with those who are still living.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To a poet, Zoom can be profoundly spiritual<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[420],"tags":[257,258,207,256,255,259],"class_list":["post-2213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-charles-klingler","tag-family-visits","tag-messenger","tag-pandemic","tag-poem","tag-poetry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2213"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2220,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions\/2220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}