Hope
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.*
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 misused – shamefully
applied at wedding feasts
seated in wrong places.
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.
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.
Ode to Jesus
So much of You
is mystery,
so much of You is
Bethlehem stable and
Calvary Cross.
So much of You
is shadow,
so much of You is
Light o’ercoming doubt
of Thomas.
Light
Awe
Lord, there is no
darkness too dark for Your Light.
There is no noise too loud
for Your Silence. There
is only You, and before You
I stand mute.
The Truth
The Light came out of
the darkness, and still comes out.
The darkness could not
restrain the Light, and still cannot.
The Light shone and still
shines, while the darkness
cowers, by the Light made blind.
Light and Hope
Where there is darkness,
there has to be Light, to see it…
Where there is despair,
there has to be Hope, to free it…