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.

Song of Solomon 2:1

“I Am the Rose of Sharon, and the Lily of the Valleys”

“I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance,” ^*
and thus defines the essential
appeal of Jesus, His compassion and
His mercy, and why so many in
the crowds would press around Him,
clutching at His garments,
as if His words were falling
upon good soil in the heretofore
barren desert of their ears,
and multiplying in each their hearts
a Rose of Sharon – beautiful
in hope, and in purity oblivious to
mortal anxieties and fears.

“Ephphatha”*

"Open Up"

Down, down deep
into the depths I plunge,
sounding for the bottom in fathoms
dive to expunge.

Down, down deep
the water courses over me, in
protective rush of foam
across my eternity.

Down, down deep
my body points in arrow flight,
single in its purpose, its
object out of sight.

Down, down deep
a veil awaits, through the
eye of a needle the thread of a camel
still to navigate. **

Mark 6: 4-6

"And He Was Amazed at Their Unbelief"

His power was powerless, and
Jesus was astounded by their lack of faith,
because all they saw Him as was
a carpenter’s son, someone
who was just like they were, plain,
ordinary and poor, no better,
someone who once worked with
stone and wood, whose family was known
and who for years had shared
cooling waters from the same
Nazareth well, a carpenter’s son,
who had recently started to
actively preach throughout the
countryside, and who was
now more interested in how
a mustard seed could bloom as
a metaphor for God’s eternal
Kingdom, and who when
questioned about the
payment of Roman taxes,
deflected the attempt to trap Him,
saying to remit to Caesar what
belonged to Caesar and to God what
belonged to God…