Bible
In the Sheepfold
Isaiah 43:1
(“I Have Called You by Name”)
Oh, ’twas an unforgettable,
gorgeous, autumn day, and the
most important thing
to the petite shepherdess
was that she teach me of each
sheep the uniqueness of
their blessed name…
Creature
O Lord, You held me
cupped in Your hands, cradled
in Your arms. You made
me to tenderly lie against
Your bosom. You formed me and
shaped me until I was as
close to Your image and likeness
as a human creature could
become, and then You
looked into my face and
breathed my name, and like a
tiny mustard seed in
the womb You placed me –
into the innocent,
lush garden of an in utero,
warm enclave.*
Confessing
I was too tired to pray,
so all I could barely whisper was
to ask Jesus to recite my
prayer for me, the very same
Jesus Who was being
scourged and abused at the pillar,
crowned with vicious thorns,
dragged cruelly through
screaming passageways to
Calvary, and then nailed
with filthy Roman spikes to a
Cross, and in the last
throes of His agony crying out,
“My God, my God, why
did You abandon me?”*
Yes, that is the same Jesus
Whom I implored to recite the
words for me…because I
was too tired to stay awake and in
self-centered pity to pray.
One God in Three Persons
Let my prayer come into
Your presence, O Almighty Father, and
allow it to be welcome as it
alights Your footstool.
Please gaze favorably as
Your Only Begotten Son mercifully
unfurls it, and as Your Holy
Spirit breathes aloud the poor
verse of the scroll.
But for the Mercy of God
Matthew 7:1-3
(“And with the Measure You Use, It Will
Be Measured to You”)
As if by a lightning flash
across the sky, I am illuminated in
all my nakedness! As if by a
sword, I am eviscerated
and ripped asunder, my quarters
tossed to wild dogs fighting
neath this table of raging thunder!
I am to be measured by
how I measure?! I am to
be judged by how I judge?!
All is hopelessly lost!
My cup once full is now
carelessly spilled, the
oil for anointing wasted, and
all the finest, aromatic
perfumes egregiously misused.
It is too late to unbury all
the bodies I buried. It is too late
to do anything to assuage
the hurt. The battleground lies
scorched under a blazing-
hot sky, and all I can see
are reapers picking at bones
littered ‘cross this field of
hard-bitten, unforgiving desert,
where banshees screech
that my heart lacked the human
compassion of eyes, and
wolves and ravens now jostle for
any entrails remaining.