Peace
Even at Sunset, You Show Me the Passion of Your Shroud
John 19:38-42
A complete silence
settles, and utter stillness darkens
my awe, and Our Lord from
His Cross is being taken down, and
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus
are hurrying to wrap Him with
perfumed spices…before
turns into blood-red
the night’s burial cloth.
Equines
To think, lo aft all
these millennia, they still
patiently await their
Savior’s return, horses, gathered
as they are at the shoreline
of His heavenly carpet,
just as they were at
the Bethlehem stable and
amongst the crowd of
flowing, colorful robes,
when Jesus whispered
His Beatitudes at
the Sermon on the Mount.
There was something
special about Him.
He listened to them, and
when He spoke, even
at ease were placed the
wildest tides. And
so now they wait…At first
they thought His
Second Coming would
be imminent, but that was
before they realized
He was not bound by simple
space and time. The
sand grains gave testament
and final clues to this –
once finest, granite rock they
incredibly stood, sheer
slabs of almighty might, but now
in their humbleness
reduced to infinitesimal
specks…content to be imprinted
on the bottoms of each
horse’s hooves.
Collage of The Old and the New
The Lord is my
hope and my salvation.
There is nothing I shall want.
In Him, hope springs
eternal, and hope
does not disappoint.
The Lord is my shepherd,
and, yea, e’en in the
valley of the shadow of
death I am not lost.
To whom else would I go?
“The Lord is my font,”
echoes my soul.
He is my portion and
to the brim fills my
cup. I am nourished by
His Word, and from
His Wisdom desert streams
to my thirst come.
Nothing can separate
me from the Love of the
Lord. He searches
me and knows me.
By His Cross He is my
Saving Hope – Christ Jesus,
the Only Begotten
Son of God.
John 11:35
("Jesus Wept")
All the people whom
Jesus helped – the little people,
the poor, the outcasts,
the marginalized, almost all of
whom are unknown and
unreferenced in the Gospels, those
people, these people,
became like drops of moisture
in the quiet, sweet waters
of the 23rd Psalm.
In their anonymity, they
assumed their place
in the community of saints,
and outward they
rippled over all of Palestine,
shouting hosannas in
the present tense of “I AM”
rhyme.
Saving Mercy
O Lord, “create in me
a clean heart” and wash the soiled
memories and reasonings
from the murals to which I cling.*
“Leadeth me beside the
still waters,” wherefrom Your Love can
bathe my soul in Beauty.**
O Lord, “create in me
a clean heart,” and I, in surety, can in
Your sheepfold rest in peace,
dipping my gourd into
Your living spring, eternally
slaking what before
could not be relieved.***