Sounds
Gethsemane
(“Not My Will but Your Will Be Done”) *
…Alone now,
suffocatingly alone,
squeezing Jesus’ chest but
soon scourging every inch of His back,
Jesus’ temptation at its most
vulnerable peak,
nothing but the sounds of
His disciples asleep,
critically unable their lids to lift
and eyes open to keep,
the penultimate test of His will,
His followers blending
and fading invisibly into the
utter blackness of
the night, becoming part
of the stark silence
of immense isolation
enclothing Him, no more
Voice from the heavens as at the
rapture of the Baptism
on the Jordan, or when
boomed the Majesty of His
Father at the glorious
Transfiguration on
Mount Tabor, just Jesus’
agonized pleas in a
pool of red in the sweat
of His blood, and the
dawning knowledge His Father
had determined there
would be no remitting of the
nails and terrors of
Golgotha’s morning
Cross…
Contemplating the Color of His Sacrifice
Sitting here,
The solitude around me
Is not just without sound. Its
Silence is painted
In blends of blood-red,
With nail holes and a
Spear puncture
Still softly oozing the
Aftermath of my sins, lo
Two millennia now His cruel
Calvary death, and
Even further back to when
The Serpent forked
Its tongue, and
Adam and Eve were
Cast outside the walls of
Eden’s heaven.
I AM Your Name
(Jeremiah 1:4-10)
It was I Who at the birth of
Creation first breathed upon you
The sounds of your name.
It was I Who first heard the
Letters reverberate
Amongst the eons and ages.
It was I Who inspired
The meaning lain unplumbed
Within these pages.
And it was I Who first kissed
You, long before in the
Womb you kicked as a babe.
Hearts
In far, timeless time,
When time was nonexistent
Except in the present
Moment with no past and
Future dividing rhymes,
The heart that beats
Within me first heard the
Heart’s beating in Thine.
How naturally and sweetly
That thought recurs
To me now, how the
Sound of Your heart has
Set my cadence, even unto
This eon’s very hour.
Who Dares Say This?
Click for meditationRegarding "Who Dares Say This?"
When I was watching
A video clip of the wild sea state
Occurring at Plum Island
On January 29th, I
Was reminded of the
Old Christian hymn,
“How Great Thou Art.”
The basis for this famous
Work was a nine
Stanza poem written by
Swedish minister,
Carl Boberg, in 1885.
He had been on the Swedish
Seacoast on a beautiful
Day, when he was
Overtaken by a tremendous
Thunderstorm of
Unspeakable power.
And then, just as suddenly,
The sky changed again,
And a beautiful blue
Appeared and birds began
To sing! He dropped
To his knees and began
To utter words which
Would be the basis for his
Poem and afterwards
His song. Next to “Amazing
Grace”, it is considered
The most beloved
Of all Christian hymns.
Flash forward to several
Weeks ago, when on
January 29th, a ‘bomb cyclone’
Snowstorm ravaged
New England and parts of the
Massachusetts coastline
With up to 30 inches
Of snow. In the midst of the
Frenzy that day, a very
Brave woman had, in a sense,
Her own Carl Boberg
Moment, and captured a
Forty two second video clip of
What it was like that
Instant to stand just a few
Bare feet from a wild,
Frigid Plum Island surf.
Thanks to the courage
Of that woman, we, too, can
Understand how someone
In 1885 would say,
“How Great Thou Art!”
Leo Carroll
February 13, 2022
Who says the
Lord God is not great,
That the Lord is not
All-powerful and
Not Sovereign over all
He hath made?
Who dares say this!?
Who dares say
God is not Master
Of the blasting and
Blistering sand
Grains and the wind
Which whips and
Howls, that God is not
Superior to the
Creatures we are,
Caught amidst
This maelstrom and
Travail as waves
Wail as if hath come
Our final hour!?