On Being Incarnate

And so from His poor birth
in a Bethlehem stable, He would come
to walk from dusty village to
village, or to be transported in rough
fishermen’s boats from one
bleak shore to the next, teaching
always about the messianic advent of
the Kingdom of God, all at the
same while His Father
was blowing galaxies and
trillions of stars from His almighty
palm to the far corners of an
incomprehensible cosmos, where
Jesus’ earthly redemptive act
could possibly also there apply – like
when the loaves and fishes
He amazingly multiplied, and
His salvation extended to
forms and natures of Creation
yet to be identified…

Grace

O my Lord,
You so easily peer into
my heart, winding Your way
deftly and knowingly through the darkened
corridors and staircases
and recesses of my soul –
and alas You find
me, on a slab in a drab
burial cloth, hidden
behind a hewn rock hitherto
unrolled – but just as in
the Garden of Eden when
You found Adam and Eve in leaves
aft their fall clothed, and
just as for Lazarus in
Bethany four-days aft his
death be told, You mercifully
summoned me forth,
and grace’s white raiment You
chose I wore.

Luke 6:29-30

("If Someone Takes Your Coat,
Let Him Have Your Shirt as Well")

Why would the soldiers
at the foot of His Cross have wanted
to cast lots for His cloak,^*
imprinted with bright-red blood and
sweat and sputum as it was?
It was as if Jesus allowed it,
even at the precipice and point of His
peering over the imminent
cliff of death, that His
one remaining garment be
parted from Him and shared by His
executioners for warmth.

Gethsemane

(“Not My Will but Your Will Be Done”) *

…Alone now,
suffocatingly alone,
squeezing Jesus’ chest but
soon scourging every inch of His back,
Jesus’ temptation at its most
vulnerable peak,
nothing but the sounds of
His disciples asleep,
critically unable their lids to lift
and eyes open to keep,
the penultimate test of His will,
His followers blending
and fading invisibly into the
utter blackness of
the night, becoming part
of the stark silence
of immense isolation
enclothing Him, no more
Voice from the heavens as at the
rapture of the Baptism
on the Jordan, or when
boomed the Majesty of His
Father at the glorious
Transfiguration on
Mount Tabor, just Jesus’
agonized pleas in a
pool of red in the sweat
of His blood, and the
dawning knowledge His Father
had determined there
would be no remitting of the
nails and terrors of
Golgotha’s morning
Cross…

Winter

Winter Prayer

O Lord, please close the
eyes and ears of my soul to mammon’s
every whisper and murmur.
How can I mirror Your perfect image
and likeness, if behind
my own rolled stone lies my
flesh as master?

Winter Writing

And thus, I return to my
writing, after a hiatus in autumn
lasting into winter, a soul
appearing adrift amongst the lost…
but maybe never far gone,
but rather more like Saint Paul –
restored at cold night to my
bridled, waiting horse.