I Am The Light of the World

I see your world in light that shines behind me,
Lit by a sun whose rays I cannot see,
The smallest gleam of light still seems to find me
Or find the child who’s hiding deep inside me.
I see your light reflected in the water,
Or kindled suddenly in someone’s eyes,
It shimmers through the living leaves of summer,
Or spills from silver veins in leaden skies,
It gathers in the candles at our vespers
It concentrates in tiny drops of dew
At times it sings for joy, at times it whispers,
But all the time it calls me back to you.
I follow you upstream through this dark night
My saviour, source, and spring, my life and light.

-- Malcolm Guite (1954- ) Anglican poet, priest, theologian, and musician 

Scripture Reference: John 8:12

Images: Lux Nova (2011) by Bernd Nestler, German, window made of float glass, treated twice with ceramic enamels, platinum mirror surface, and gold dust, at St. Christoffel Cathedral, Roermond, the Netherlands.

Expansive language Magnificat

 And Mary said,

My soul overflows with your greatness, O Adonai;

        My spirit rejoices in you, O Savior of All the Nations!
For the light of your countenance has dawned over me
        despite my humble state.
From now and throughout eternity
        even those yet born will call me Blessed
                and sing of the great things you have done for me,

                exulting in the holiness of your Name.

You pour out your mercy on those who stand in awe of you
        those who revere you,
                from ages untold to ages yet to come.

Your strong arm shields the humble
        and levels the proud in their isolating conceit.
You have razed the thrones of those who rule by might
        while setting the lowly and gentle upon seats of honor.
You have satisfied the hungry with abundant delights
        while giving the rich a begging bowl, 

        sending them away empty-handed.
You have come to the aid of your people unfailingly
        fulfilling your promises to our ancestors,
                to the children of Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham forever,

                standing among us from time immemorial.

(reimagined LBS)

I Saw the Maori Jesus

I saw the Maori Jesus
Walking on Wellington Harbour.
He wore blue dungarees,
His beard and hair were long.
His breath smelled of mussels and paraoa.
When he smiled it looked like the dawn.
When he broke wind the little fishes trembled.
When he frowned the ground shook.
When he laughed everybody got drunk.

The Maori Jesus came on shore
And picked out his twelve disciples.
One cleaned toilets in the railway station;
His hands were scrubbed red to get the shit out of the pores.
One was a call-girl who turned it up for nothing.
One was a housewife who had forgotten the Pill
And stuck her TV set in the rubbish can.
One was a little office clerk
Who'd tried to set fire to the Government Buildings.
Yes, and there were several others;
One was a sad old queen;
One was an alcoholic priest
Going slowly mad in a respectable parish.

The Maori Jesus said, 'Man,
From now on the sun will shine.'

He did no miracles;
He played the guitar sitting on the ground.

The first day he was arrested
For having no lawful means of support.
The second day he was beaten up by the cops
For telling a dee his house was not in order.
The third day he was charged with being a Maori
And given a month in Mt Crawford.
The fourth day he was sent to Porirua
For telling a screw the sun would stop rising.
The fifth day lasted seven years
While he worked in the Asylum laundry
Never out of the steam.
The sixth day he told the head doctor,
'I am the Light in the Void;
I am who I am.'
The seventh day he was lobotomised;
The brain of God was cut in half.

On the eighth day the sun did not rise.
It did not rise the day after.
God was neither alive nor dead.
The darkness of the Void,
Mountainous, mile-deep, civilised darkness
Sat on the earth from then till now.

-- James K. Baxter (1923-1972) one of New Zealand's greatest poets.

I Saw Him Standing

Under the dark trees, there he stands,
there he stands; shall he not draw my eyes?
I thought I knew a little
how he compels, beyond all things, but now
he stands there in the shadows. It will be
Oh, such a daybreak, such bright morning,
when I shall wake to see him
as he is.

He is called Rose of Sharon, for his skin
is clear, his skin is flushed with blood,
his body lovely and exact; how he compels
beyond ten thousand rivals. There he stands,
my friend, the friend of guilt and helplessness,
to steer my hollow body
over the sea.

The earth is full of masks and fetishes,
what is there here for me? are these like him?
Keep company with him and you will know:
no kin, no likeness to those empty eyes.
he is a stranger to them all, great Jesus.
What is there here for me? I know
what I have longed for. Him to hold me always.



--Ann Griffiths (1776-1805), Welsh Methodist, farmer’s daughter and wife in mid North Wales, considered to be one of the greatest Welsh religious poets and hymnist who died in childbirth at age 29. Translated from Welsh by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

spring song

the green of Jesus

is breaking the ground

and the sweet

smell of delicious Jesus

is opening the house and

the dance of Jesus music

has hold of the air and

the world is turning

in the body of Jesus and

the future in possible

--Lucille Clifton (1936-2010), African American poet, writer, and educator, poet laureate of Mary;and, and to-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry.

a desert planet

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.


A desert planet....


Once we stood by the clear waters,
knowing who we were,
who the church was and where we were going....
...now we’re in the desert....
...uncharted territory.
...severe and bleak.
...but full of Eastern promise.
...the rules are different.
The old ways don’t work.
...it is a lonely place,
and dangerous.
There are snakes and scorpions.
Alien creatures.
we have been stripped of our illusions
of growth...
of plenty...
and we are in the desert.
waiting...
for God to speak.

Turn these stones into bread.
the instant solution.
the quick fix. If we just…if we just...
change our chairs, change our prayers, fix the roof.
Then everything will be lovely.
Won’t it?

The tempter said. Go on. Turn these stones into bread
bread. like the bread used to be, in the old days...
in a warm hearth in Nazareth.
It was so good then. I can almost smell the yeast.
A quick-fix and they’ll all come back.

But it is written. You can’t live by bread alone.
We need more than that. In this desert planet.

Every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Living God, we need you here, to tell us what to do.
Feed us with your words, we are hungry!
Show us the next step. How to be your church in this
undiscovered world.
As we sit in the sand and try to hear you.

And the tempter said. Look.
Here are all the kingdoms of the world.
I’ll give you all of this. If you just worship me.
Yes. Maybe that would be easier.
Maybe we should give up. And join the others.
Worship at Ikea, religiously.
Or Kylie, or Microsoft, or Visa,
I believe in the Holy Catalog Church.

You can have it all. Worship me.
Everything we’ve ever wanted.
At a price. But that price would be too high.

Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him.
Who else can we turn to.
You’re the one who gives us life.
And though we may we walking in the wilderness.
You are here with us.
Let us glimpse a burning bush somewhere on the way.
This is a lonely planet.

He will command his angels.
They’ll protect you.
You needn’t even stub your toes.
Our attendance is plummeting but we needn’t fear
the angels will catch us.
Someone else will fix it. We’ll leave it up to them.
An evangelist with a funny name, or the parish next-door.
This desert is too difficult. So maybe I’ll just sleep.

Jesus answered the tempter.
Do not put the Lord your God to the test.
Jesus Help us.
Its hard to find the energy. When the sand pushes against us.
When we stumble in the wilderness. When we can’t see the way.
When the old signposts have disappeared
And all we have are sand-dunes.
But we know...
We can’t do a quick-fix
We can’t give up
We can’t leave it to someone else.

Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit returned.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
Because he has anointed me.
To bring good news to the poor.
Good news came from out of the desert.
There is good news.
God has brought us here to hear it.
And God will lead us the Promised Land.

--Sue Wallace, found at re-worship blog

Lectionary Link: 1 Lent C, Luke 4:1-13

The Seven Last Words

1
The story of the end, of the last word
of the end, when told, is a story that never ends.
We tell it and retell it — one word, then another
until it seems that no last word is possible,
that none would be bearable. Thus, when the hero
of the story says to himself, as to someone far away,
‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do,’
we may feel that he is pleading for us, that we are
the secret life of the story and, as long as his plea
is not answered, we shall be spared. So the story
continues. So we continue. And the end, once more,
becomes the next, and the next after that.

2
There is an island in the dark, a dreamt-of place
where the muttering wind shifts over the white lawns
and riffles the leaves of trees, the high trees
that are streaked with gold and line the walkways there;
and those already arrived are happy to be the silken
remains of something they were but cannot recall;
they move to the sound of stars, which is also imagined,
but who cares about that; the polished columns they see
may be no more than shafts of sunlight, but for those
who live on and on in the radiance of their remains
this is of little importance. There is an island
in the dark and you will be there, I promise you, you
shall be with me in paradise, in the single season of being,
in the place of forever, you shall find yourself. And there
the leaves will turn and never fall, there the wind
will sing and be your voice as if for the first time.

3
Someday some one will write a story set
in a place called The Skull, and it will tell,
among other things, of a parting between mother
and son, of how she wandered off, of how he vanished
in air. But before that happens, it will describe
how their faces shone with a feeble light and how
the son was moved to say, ‘Woman, look at your son,’
then to a friend nearby, ‘Son, look at your mother.’
At which point the writer will put down his pen
and imagine that while those words were spoken
something else happened, something unusual like
a purpose revealed, a secret exchanged, a truth
to which they, the mother and son, would be bound,
but what it was no one would know. Not even the writer.

4
These are the days when the sky is filled with
the odor of lilac, when darkness becomes desire,
when there is nothing that does not wish to be born.
These are the days of spring when the fate
of the present is a breezy fullness, when the world’s
great gift for fiction gilds even the dirt we walk on.
On such days we feel we could live forever, yet all
the while we know we cannot. This is the doubleness
in which we dwell. The great master of weather
and everything else, if he wishes, can bring forth
a dark of a different kind, one hidden by darkness
so deep it cannot be seen. No one escapes.
Not even the man who saved others, and believed
he was the chosen son. When the dark came down
even he cried out, ‘Father, father, why have you
forsaken me?’ But to his words no answer came.

5
To be thirsty. To say, ‘I thirst.’ To be given,
instead of water, vinegar, and that to be pressed
from a sponge. To close one’s eyes and see the giant
world that is born each time the eyes are closed.
To see one’s death. To see the darkening clouds
as the tragic cloth of a day of mourning. To be the one
mourned. To open the dictionary of the Beyond and discover
what one suspected, that the only word in it
is nothing. To try to open one’s eyes, but not to be
able to. To feel the mouth burn. To feel the sudden
presence of what, again and again, was not said.
To translate it and have it remain unsaid. To know
at last that nothing is more real than nothing.

6
‘It is finished,’ he said. You could hear him say it,
the words almost a whisper, then not even that,
but an echo so faint it seemed no longer to come
from him, but from elsewhere. This was his moment,
his final moment. “It is finished,” he said into a vastness
that led to an even greater vastness, and yet all of it
within him. He contained it all. That was the miracle,
to be both large and small in the same instant, to be
like us, but more so, then finally to give up the ghost,
which is what happened. And from the storm that swirled
a formal nakedness took shape, the truth of disguise
and the mask of belief were joined forever.

7
Back down these stairs to the same scene,
to the moon, the stars, the night wind. Hours pass
and only the harp off in the distance and the wind
moving through it. And soon the sun’s gray disk,
darkened by clouds, sailing above. And beyond,
as always, the sea of endless transparence, of utmost
calm, a place of constant beginning that has within it
what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand
has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart.
To that place, to the keeper of that place, I commit myself.

--Mark Strand (1934-2014) American poet and translator, US Poet Laureate 1990

"For Years My Heart Inquired of Me"

Nakalele Blowhole, Maui

For years my heart inquired of me

                   Where Jamshid's sacred cup might be,

And what was in its own possession

                   It asked from strangers, constantly;

Begging the pearl that's slipped its shell

                   From lost souls wandering by the sea.

Last night I took my troubles to

                   The Magian sage whose keen eyes see

A hundred answers in the wine

                   Whose cup he, laughing, showed to me.

I questioned him, "When was this cup

                   That shows the world's reality

Handed to you?" He said, "The day

                   Heaven's vault of lapis lazuli

Was raised, and marvelous things took place

                   By Intellect's divine decree,

And Moses' miracles were made

                   And Sameri's apostasy."

He added then, "That friend they hanged   

                   High on the looming gallows tree—

His sin was that he spoke of things

                   Which should be pondered secretly,

The page of truth his heart enclosed

                   Was annotated publicly.

But if the Holy Ghost once more

                   Should lend his aid to us we'd see

Others perform what Jesus did—

                   Since in his heartsick anguish he

Was unaware that God was there

                   And called His name out ceaselessly."

I asked him next, "And beauties' curls

                   That tumble down so sinuously,

What is their meaning? Whence do they come?"

                   "Hafez," the sage replied to me,

"It's your distracted, lovelorn heart

                   That asks these questions constantly."

--Hafiz of Shiraz (1310-1390), one of the greatest Persian lyric poets, translated by Dick Davis

Cana, or Not a Perfect Carpenter

"They have no wine."-- John 2:3 
"Like us in all things but sin."-- Hebrews 4:15 

It had to come from somewhere. Expectations 
have histories. Out of the blue one does 
not say, “They have no wine,” as though 
remarking on the gathering of the clouds, or how 
late the spring this year. Surely she knew 
before she came. Had he bent more 
than nails, as he hammered the oak plank, 
cut too short for the table top,

and turning to be sure the door was closed, 
had he, in a stolen moment, lengthen
it an inch or two, a quick 
impatient wonder to cover his mistake?

But through the lattice, had she seen, 
smiled and understood. Had she asked 
him to build a porch with beams from Lebanon, 
where she could catch the breeze, watch

the sun go down? Then as the hard 
wood rafters began to drop, 
did he twist the law of gravity, put 
a kink in the path of falling timbers?

And did she duck – and marvel?

-- Fr. Kilian McDonnell, OSB (1921- ), American monk, poet, and theologian at St. John's Abbey.

Relevant Scripture, John 2:1-11, 2nd after Epiphany C

Look!

As we learned how to read, were we 
beginning to forget to look, 
our young eyes caught in tangles of print 
so that imagination was choked? Were we 
trapped at that remove from ourselves? 

Or did we begin to see a new way, with eyes 
that widened in the amazement of reverie, 
memory, invention? As we peered 
between the words, could we make out 
shapes and colors beyond them?

What did our inside eyes make of 
the black marks on creamy paper, on onionskin? 
A dream of angels turned real, perhaps. 
A wooden boat on a lake. Three small loaves 
fragmented to fill all those empty mouths 

and baskets. Or this: a blind man 
opening his eyes so that the first face he sees -
a vision, surely - is Christ's, spittle 
still shining on the quick fingers, 
his mouth saying urgently, Look! 

—Luci Shaw (1928- ) from Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation

The Poet Thinks About the Donkey

On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited,
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.

How horses, turned into the meadow,
     leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
     clatter away, splashed with sunlight!

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen,
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

--Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet, teacher, and author, from Thirst: Poems, 2006.



Photo: detail from a window at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Ferguson, MO, by Emil Frei and Sons.

A Year of Jubilee

You grew up like a sapling
With fishermen and shepherds
And the God-haunted mountains
Of your small holy country

You looked the same
As all your people
So for a time
You went unnoticed
You who were later killed
Most cruelly

One Sabbath morning
You stood up in the temple
Young village rabbi
From the provinces

And you unrolled the scroll
And read aloud from it
The Word welled up to us
Out of Isaiah's book
As fresh as the clear streams
That well up in the mountains

"The spirit of the Lord
Has come upon me
He has anointed me
To bring glad tidings
To the poor
To heal the brokenhearted
To give the blind their sight
To free the captives
Release the prisoners and proclaim
A year of jubilee"

We recognized the voice
This was the Promised One
This was the Shepherd
Our hearts were burning.

We listened when you told us
About our heavenly Father
Who wishes us
To cherish one another
To be forgiving, generous
As he is himself

And festive, carefree
As the meadow-flowers
Light as the swallows

He wishes us 
To be like children

You also told us
Our Father
Bless us most of all
When we are poor

So even when our bodies
Have grown old
And our heads are filled with confusion

He will not love us
Any the less for that.

--Anne Porter (1911-2011), American Roman Catholic poet, from Living Things: Collected Poems, 2006

Scripture references: Luke 4:14-21 (3rd After Epiphany Year C)

The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist

Something has happened
to the bread
and the wine.

They have been blessed.
What now?

The body leans forward

to receive the gift
from the priest's hand,
then the chalice.

They are something else now
from what they were
before this began.

I want
to see Jesus,
maybe in the clouds

or on the shore,
just walking,
beautiful man

and clearly
someone else
besides.

On the hard days
I ask myself
if I ever will.

Also there are times
my body whispers to me
that I have.

-- Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet and author, from Thirst: Poems, 2006

Prayer for Christ's Peace

We are at peace with God and one another

through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us pray that the world may have peace--

not any peace, at any price,

not unjust and compassionless peace,

but this peace of the Lord Jesus Christ,

which the world cannot give to itself

but must learn to receive from him.

--from Contemporary Prayers for Church and School, 1975, from SCM Press Ltd., p. 25

Ascension

Stretching Himself as if again,
          through downpress of dust
                    upward, soil giving way
to thread of white, that reaches
          for daylight, to open as green
                    leaf that it is...
Can Ascension
          not have been
                    arduous, almost
as the return
          from Sheol, and
                    back through the tomb
into breath?
          Matter reanimate
                    now must relinquish
itself, its
          human cells,
                    molecules, five
senses, linear
          vision endured
                    as Man--
the sole
          all-encompassing gaze
                    resumed now,
Eye of Eternity.
          Relinquished, earth's
                    broken Eden.
Expulsion,
          liberation,
                    last
self-enjoined task
          of Incarnation.
                    He again
Fathering Himself.
          Seed-case
                    splitting,
He again
          Mothering His birth:
                    torture and bliss.

-- Denise Levertov (1923-1997), English/American poet, from Evening Train, 1992, in The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov, 2013


Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, Ascension of Christ, 1636

Prayer for Equanimity

Lord Jesus Christ, you know what it is like to be human, yet you managed not to let pride and anger get the better of you: you were not greedy for power or praise. Touch our hearts with your Spirit, so that we may be like you. Give us grace that we may show grace inall our dealings. May al that you came to begin on Earth be fulfilled.

Amen.

-- Caryl Micklem and Roger Tomes, Prayer 122 from Contemporary Prayers for Church and School, 1975

Easter

Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day,
          Didst make thy triumph over death and sin:
And having harrowed hell, didst bring away
          Captivity thence captive us to win:
          This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die,
          Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin,
May live for ever in felicity.
And that thy love we weighing worthily,
          May likewise love thee for the same again:
And for thy sake that all like dear didst buy,
          With love may one another entertain.
                    So let us love, dear love, like as we ought,
                    Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

--Edmund Spencer (1552- 1599) was one of the greatest English poets ever.



Photo: Mosaic in Resurrection chapel at the Washington National Cathedral.

Christ as a Gardener

The boxwoods planted in the park spell LIVE.
I never noticed it until they died.
Before, the entwined green had smudged the word
unreadable. And when they take their own advice
again – come spring, come Easter – no one will know
a word is buried in the leaves. I love the way
that Mary thought her resurrected Lord
a gardener. It wasn’t just the broad-brimmed hat
and muddy robe that fooled her: he was that changed.
He looks across the unturned field, the riot
Of unscythed grass, the smattering of wildflowers.
Before he can stop himself, he’s on his knees.
He roots up stubborn weeds, pinches the suckers,
deciding order here – what lives, what dies,
and how. But it goes deeper even than that.
His hands burn and his bare feet smolder. He longs
To lie down inside the long, dew-moist furrows
and press his pierced side and his broken forehead
into the dirt. But he’s already done it –
passed through one death and out the other side.
He laughs. He kicks his bright spade in the earth
and turns it over. Spring flashes by, then harvest.
Beneath his feet, seeds dance into the air.
They rise, and he, not noticing, ascends
on midair steppingstones of dandelion,
of milkweed, thistle, cattail, and goldenrod.


-- Andrew Hudgins (1951- ), American poet and professor of English at the Ohio State University, from The Never-Ending, 1991.



Image: The Risen Christ as a gardener (see John 20:11-18) with Mary of Magdala, from a Limoges enamel.

The Ballad of Mary's Son

It was in the Spring
The Passover had come.
There was feasting in the streets and joy.
But an awful thing
Happened in the Spring –
Men who knew not what they did
Killed Mary’s Boy.
He was Mary’s Son,
And the Son of God was He –
Sent to bring the whole world joy.
There were some who could not hear,
And some were filled with fear –
So they built a cross
For Mary’s Boy.

--Langston Hughes (1902-1967), African American poet, novelist, and playwright, 1954

Royalty

He was a plain man
and learned no latin.

Having left all gold behind
he dealt out peace
to all us wild ones
and the weather.

He ate fish, bread,
country wine and God's will.

Dust sandaled his feet.

He wore purple only once,
and that was an irony.


--Luci Shaw (1928- ) from Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation, 2006