Poetry

Today’s Word: Yes

Steve · December 19, 2013 · 1 Comment

The Annunciation, by Henry Ossawa Tanner (Wiki Commons)

The Annunciation

(Found in Luke 1:26-39, the Annunciation is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus.)

The announcement, the call to her in the midst of sleep,
is the very beginning of the story,
the pinhole of opportunity,
the invitation to grace
the way opening to way.

It is God saying:
“Yes, this is what we will do. We will begin here,
with this one, this girl.
This poor girl from the middle of nowhere.
This will catch them off guard.
Through her we will look like the rest of them,
work and walk among them, be with them,
point them in our direction before they realize it.

This will be, for many, the path of greatest resistance,
not an easy and gentle way,
but a birth and rebirth offered for them,
a way marked by labor and blood,
things unknown to us,
yet necessary for the work we must do in them.
Yes, this is what we will do.
Yes.”

This offer of grace and salvation now extends to us,
The sons and daughters of creation,
and it asks for an answer.
It requires from us the same yes she gave,
Sitting on a rumpled bed
In the middle of the night,
Inviting in the light,
Saying yes.

Ask yourself in silence: To what have I said yes to God? To what have I said no?

A Song for the Season: Christmas to Me

Steve · December 13, 2013 · 3 Comments

Dusting — A light dusting of snow. SJG photo

A little something special for the seasons of Advent and Christmas…another song from my Christmas CD, “Home Again with You,” produced a few years back with my friends in the band Nathanael’s Creed.

Next up is our jazzy “Christmas to Me,” inspired by a beautiful poem by the (now) Rev. Katie Cooper Nix and by the Christmas recordings from pop-jazz heroes like Nat King Cole and Tony Bennett. I know it’s early on a Friday morning as I post this, but this one is perhaps best enjoyed in front of a fire with your favorite beverage and your favorite people…

To listen, click here: Christmas to Me

Christmas to Me

Words and music by Phil Cooper, Steve Givens and Jim Russell, based on a poem by Katie Cooper Nix.
© 2007 Potter’s Mark Music (BMI)

Christmas to me, isn’t the lights on the tree
The wrappings and the bows
A reindeer’s glowing nose.

Christmas to me, isn’t so easy to see
In endless games and toys
For little girls and boys.

And no matter where I go
All the trappings and the snow
It just isn’t merry
It just isn’t Christmas
‘Till I am home again with you.

Christmas to me, echoes the mystery
The sacred holy night
A grace so pure and bright.

Christmas to me, lives in the memory
Of family and friends
A love that never ends.

And no matter where I go
All the trappings and the snow
It just isn’t merry
It just isn’t Christmas
‘Till I am home again with you.

The players
Lead vocals: Steve Givens
Guitar: Jim Russell
Piano: Phil Cooper
Percussion: Pat Dillender
Bass: Gerry Kasper
Background vocals: Phil Cooper and Jim Russell (I think!)

[If you’re looking for stocking stuffers, the CDs are available for $15, which includes postage and handling. Drop me an email or send a check to: Steve Givens, 51 High Valley Dr., Chesterfield, Mo. 63017.]

Today’s Word: Beginnings

Steve · December 10, 2013 · 2 Comments

In begins on the road to Bethlehem. SJG photo.

Just received word from our friends “The Merry Keenans” in England (we lived just west of London for about three years in the mid-1990s) that a
Christmas reading I wrote a number of years ago is going to be performed as part of this year’s carol service at our old parish, St. Joseph’s in Gerrards
Cross, Buckinghamshire, this coming Sunday. The choirs will be conducted by Mary Keenan “herself,” and I’m told there will be mulled wine and minced pies in the parish centre following the festivities. Truly, truly wish we could be there. If by chance you live in that beautiful part of the world (in the Chilterns), please drop by and clap loudly. Tell them the colonists sent you.

Here’s the reading…

The Journey Begins

The journey begins, not at Nazareth as Joseph and Mary prepare for their trip to the City of David, but at a time much earlier.

It begins with darkness…and God…and the Word.

It begins at creation, when God called forth light, life and those made in His own image.

It begins with a man and a woman, banished from the garden and crying out for a new
source of life and salvation.

It begins with a son, standing over the slain body of his brother and listening to the sound of blood crying out from the ground.

It begins with a great flood and the promise of a rainbow.

It begins on a mountain top, with a father’s hand ready to sacrifice his son.

It begins with a child, drawn like water from the river by a Pharaoh’s daughter.

It begins with a bush, burning but not consumed, on a small parcel of holy ground.

It begins with plagues and the deaths of first-born children, with years of wandering in the desert, with manna from heaven and water flowing from rocks, with towers of flame and parted seas, with covenants and commandments and temples and sacred meals.

It begins with songs of praise, psalms of thanksgiving, and words of wisdom for those wise enough to listen.

It begins with the words of prophets, warning of coming destruction and telling of the coming of a Messiah.

It begins with a voice in the wilderness crying, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

It begins with the stirrings of life inside a chosen woman.

It begins on the road to Bethlehem…

Ask yourself in silence: Where did my journey begin? When did God enter it?

Today’s Word: Holy

Steve · November 21, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Sacred Heart in Chinandega, Nicaragua market. SJG photo

Sanctus — holy — the brass candleholder gleams,
here in the chapel at noon.
I am making my presence known to the Holy One
and the Holy One to me.
We behold each other
and I know I am not worthy to even be here,
know that mounds of dark failure and sin,
— a life full, day full, moment full —
(it doesn’t matter how much or how little)
should separate me from sanctus but do not.

The stained-glass face on the side window,
above the radiating and sacred heart,
holds my glance like a Word I’ve never seen before
as I try to puzzle out its meaning and source.
And yet this face knows my name, my life,
and never blinks or changes expression,
revealing divine compassion and grace
so abundant I would drown
were it water.

For I am covered in grace, not sin.
Enveloped in hope, not in my past.
Secure in that gaze.
Wrapped in that holy.
Held in that love.
Sanctus. Sanctus. Sanctus.

Ask yourself in silence: Where do I experience the holy and sacred? What holds my gaze and points me to the divine?

Today’s Word: Grandeur

Steve · August 28, 2013 · 7 Comments

sunset2 — Grandeur. Sunset on Ft. Myers Beach, 2013. SJG photo

Sue and I arrived in Fort Myers Beach in southwest Florida this evening for a week away celebrating our 33rd anniversary. We spent our honeymoon just a few hours north of here in 1980 and have been back to the area many times over the years. Our plane was a little late landing, and by the time we rented the car and drove to the beach, the sun was about to set. We rushed into the lobby of the small hotel on Estero Blvd., checked in, and — before we even went to our room — ran to the beach.

We turned the corner at the edge of the building and this is the sunset we encountered, the sky aflame with yellows, reds, oranges, and spotted with dark, ominous clouds. The world can take your breath away at times, as God knows well. So he keeps surprising us, even though we’ve perhaps sat and witnessed hundreds or thousands of sunrises and sunsets in our lives. When you think about it, there’s no reason for all this beauty, really, other than to amaze us, to make us a little weak in the knees and a little more aware of God’s grandeur and majesty. My mind went immediately to Gerard Manley Hopkins’ great poem:

Like shining from shook foil. Ft. Myers Beach, 2013. SJG photo

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.

And later in the poem…

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Ask yourself in silence: When was the last time I was made weak in the knees by God’s grandeur?

* * *

I wrote about this same poem a few years back. I was first introduced to it back in college and it comes to mind whenever I find myself face to face with a sunset…