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…

Luke 8: 43-48

"Who Touched Me?"

Lord, there You are — the
Only-Begotten Son of God,
the Word, the Word Made Flesh,
the Word Incarnate,
the Lamb of God … And
You are veiled behind this small,
metallic, tabernacle door, and
I am alone with You, and
all I have to do is to open the
tabernacle door, not
with a key but with
my heart, or to just lightly
touch the exterior metal, like
the woman with the
chronic bleed once did with
the hem of Your garment — from
whence You felt an
indescribable rush of
Your power into her flesh,
stoppering her bleed
forever, while around You the
crowd continued its
seemingly inexhaustible,
irrepressible press.

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.