Poetry

A Light in Darkness

Steve · December 24, 2013 · 2 Comments

Winter moon. SJG photo.

A Light in Darkness
A Christmas Villanelle

A light in darkness fights off the cold
thrust into the world yet of its own making.
The new life is fragile but the message is bold.

A gentle king, as the prophets foretold,
stirs in the straw and yawns in his waking.
A light in darkness fights off the cold.

A star from the East beckons prophecies old,
the expanse between heaven and Earth is breaking.
The new life is fragile but the message is bold.

In this child a mystery will unfold,
for wise men there is no mistaking.
A light in darkness fights off the cold.

The angels proclaim what shepherds behold,
for this night the whole world is aching.
The new life is fragile but the message is bold.

A gift from on high more precious than gold,
a life that brings life for the taking.
A light in darkness fights off the cold,
the new life is fragile but the message is bold.

To listen to a recitation of this with music, A Light in Darkness.

Merry Christmas, to all…

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?

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: Poetic

Steve · October 16, 2013 · 1 Comment

station — Looking Jesus in the Eye. SJG photo.

“The Church must be a poetic community,” theologian Walter Brueggemann once wrote, meaning — in my mind anyway — that if we are going to reach the people around us with the Gospel, we’re going to have to move beyond the standard rhetoric and capture their imaginations through our creativity, poetry, music, and art. We must be able to offer more them more than dogma and argument. We must be able to show and tell them who Jesus is in new and creative ways, following the lead of Jesus himself, who taught most effectively not with shouts of indignation but rather with simple parables and gentle acts of hospitality and healing. Jesus taught by feeding people and by looking them in the eye when he spoke. In the Beatitudes, he reached them by giving them a beautifully poetic list of ways they could live more blessed lives. Like a good rabbi, Jesus taught using the power of story.

Jesus can be hard to see and find in our busy, self-centered world. So it’s the job of the Church — that’s us — to prayerfully, gently and clearly bring him into the light of day in the midst of darkness. By telling his story in new ways and by relating the stories of our own lives and the movement of God in them, we stand as poetic, creative witnesses to the life of Christ, professing a loving, forgiving God who is Immanuel, who is “God with us,” who is the Incarnate, living, creative and creating Word.

Ask yourself in silence: How can I tell the story of Jesus in a fresh, creative, artistic way? How can I make Jesus and his good news understandable and attractive to someone who desperately needs to hear the story?