Fences

Some people build fences
to keep others out,
while others build fences
to keep themselves in.
All that can be done is to
gently place a gift
at their gate, and hope
somehow it is seen, as
through pretty, pastel curtains
they discreetly peek…

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 where
You found Adam and Eve in leaves
after 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 raiment You chose
that I wore.

On the Shore

(Ode to Mary Magdalene)

Unfurl your heart,
dear woman, and across the
Sea of Galilee to the other
side set your sail.
There, on the far shore,
awaits you the Lord, dressed in His
garments of dazzling white,
Gethsemane defeated,
and gone forever the drops
of blood in fear of
Golgotha’s nails.

Light and Silence

Lord, there is
No darkness too dark for
Your Light. There is
No noise too loud for
Your Silence.
There is only me,
Lord, and it is I who
Must ultimately choose
And decide…

Matthew 12: 46-50

And so Jesus said to the
Crowd pressing tightly around Him,
“Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”
Waving His hand about Him to
His disciples, He then continued,
“Look, these are my mother and brothers!
Anyone who does the will of My
Father in Heaven is My brother and
Sister and mother!” And so when
His own mother and brothers, who were
In the crowd and heard this, they truly
Realized He had now left the quiet,
Hidden life of Nazareth, and that never
Again would things be the same…He was
Now about His “Father’s business,”
As He had once said when found in the
Temple at age twelve with the
Elders and the Teachers of the Law.
Instead of striding across Judea
And Galilee and the surrounding
Countryside, He would now stride
Across the Universe, the Word,
The Word Incarnate, the Word Made Flesh.
The Old Covenant, written on
Stone tablets, would now be freed and
Written onto hearts, and every
Creature amongst uncountable stars
Would lift their heads, with Love as the
New astrophysics and mathematics,
Both on an earthly plane near, and
Spinning on a galaxy axis far.