The Calm

Our storm is past, and that storm’s tyrannous rage,
A stupid calm, but nothing it, doth ‘suage.
The fable is inverted, and far more
A block afflicts, now, than a stork before.
Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves, or us;
In calms, Heaven laughs to see us languish thus.
As steady’as I can wish that my thoughts were,
Smooth as thy mistress’ glass, or what shines there,
The sea is now; and, as the isles which we
Seek, when we can move, our ships rooted be.
As water did in storms, now pitch runs out;
As lead, when a fir’d church becomes one spout.
And all our beauty, and our trim, decays,
Like courts removing, or like ended plays.
The fighting-place now seamen’s rags supply;
And all the tackling is a frippery.
No use of lanthorns; and in one place lay
Feathers and dust, to-day and yesterday.
Earth’s hollownesses, which the world’s lungs are,
Have no more wind than the upper vault of air.
We can nor lost friends nor sought foes recover,
But meteor-like, save that we move not, hover.
Only the calenture together draws
Dear friends, which meet dead in great fishes’ jaws;
And on the hatches, as on altars, lies
Each one, his own priest, and own sacrifice.
Who live, that miracle do multiply,
Where walkers in hot ovens do not die.
If in despite of these we swim, that hath
No more refreshing than our brimstone bath;
But from the sea into the ship we turn,
Like parboil’d wretches, on the coals to burn.
Like Bajazet encag’d, the shepherds’ scoff,
Or like slack-sinew’d Samson, his hair off,
Languish our ships. Now as a myriad
Of ants durst th’ emperor’s lov’d snake invade,
The crawling gallies, sea-gaols, finny chips,
Might brave our pinnaces, now bed-rid ships.
Whether a rotten state, and hope of gain,
Or to disuse me from the queasy pain
Of being belov’d and loving, or the thirst
Of honour, or fair death, out-push’d me first,
I lose my end; for here, as well as I,
A desperate may live, and a coward die.
Stag, dog, and all which from or towards flies,
Is paid with life or prey, or doing dies.
Fate grudges us all, and doth subtly lay
A scourge, ‘gainst which we all forget to pray.
He that at sea prays for more wind, as well
Under the poles may beg cold, heat in hell.
What are we then? How little more, alas,
Is man now, than before he was? He was
Nothing; for us, we are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves, still disproportion it.
We have no power, no will, no sense; I lie,
I should not then thus feel this misery.

-- John Donne (1572-1631), Anglican priest, preacher, essayist, and metaphysical poet, Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral

Scripture reference: Matthew 14:22-33, Proper 14A

Image: The Stormy Sea, by Alma Thomas

Putting in the Seed

You come to fetch me from my work to-night 

When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

-- Robert Frost (1874-1963) poet, teacher, farmer and US Poet Laureate 1959-1960 and four time Pulitzer Prize winner.

Scripture reference: Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43, Proper 11A

Sowing

In the stilled place that once was a road going down
From the town to the river, and where the lives of marriages grew
a house, cistern and barn, flowers, the tilted stone of borders,
and the deeds of their lives ran to neglect, and honeysuckle
and then the fire overgrew it all, I walk heavy
with seed, spreading on the cleared hill the beginnings
of green, clover and grass to be pasture. Between
history’s death upon the place and the trees that would have come
I claim, and act, and am mingled in the fate of the world.

-- Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, teacher, novelist, agrarian, farmer, and activist

Scripture Reference:  Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43, Proper 11A

Sowing the Seed

Sowing the seed,
my hand is one with the earth.

Wanting the seed to grow,

my mind is one with the light.

Hoeing the crop,
my hands are one with the rain.

Having cared for the plants, 

my mind is one with the air.

Hungry and trusting,
my mind is one with the earth.

Eating the fruit,
my body is one with the earth.

-- Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, teacher, novelist, agrarian, farmer, and activist

Scripture Reference:  Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43, Proper 11A

Elegy

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

My tale was heard and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent and yet I am not old,
I saw the world and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

I sought my death and found it in my womb,
I looked for life and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made;
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

-Chidiock Tichborne 1558-1586 (written on the even of his execution during the reign of Elizabeth I)

Scripture Reference: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43,  Proper 11 A

The Value of Sparrows

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?”- Matthew 10:29

The Almighty, and my professor,
have enticed me to commit
to thirty minutes of daily unstructured prayer.
For Episcopalians, this may almost
sound heretical, but I put away
my prayerbooks and liturgies, and sit in silence
at dawn, to discern the tender voice of God
in whatever guise she assumes
by this pond
in the middle
of this campus
on this rainy mountaintop,
clouds above, clouds below.

At first all you can hear
are the intrusions crafted by humans:
the ringing of an unattended telephone, the
garbage men greeting one another, heavy
machinery belching diesel fumes aloft,
revving engines, egad--
and it’s not even six a.m.

Re-center, the wind murmurs,
stippling the face of the pond like hammered silver,
and the poplar leaves flash pale
as they shrug over in unison,
hands cupped in gratitude to midwife the coming rain.

But then, the voice of God hovers
just behind my ear:
fish crows chiding “ah ah” just over my shoulder;
Carolina wrens’ liquid song arrowing from the underbrush
as Bachman’s sparrow—named after a preacher-- trills;
a red-winged blackbird’s alarm whistle
blending perfectly into the sound
of the garbage truck reversing,
upending any smug certainty
of the comparative value of sparrows.

-- Leslie Barnes Scoopmire; this was first published at Episcopal Journal and Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on June 22, 2023.

Image: the pond at which I was praying at Sewanee during my summer school session there.

The Donkey

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.


-- G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English critic, novelist, poet, and convert to Roman Catholicism

Scripture Reference: Matthew 21:1-11, Palm Sunday, Lent A

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Did you ever understand this?

If my spirit was poor, how could I enter heaven?
Was I depressed?
Understanding editing,
I see how a comma, removed or inserted
with careful plan,
can change everything.
I was reminded of this
when a poor young man
in Tunisia
desperate to live
and humiliated for trying
set himself ablaze;
I felt uncomfortably warm
as if scalded by his shame.
I do not have to sell vegetables from a cart as he did
or live in narrow rooms too small for spacious thought;
and, at this late date,
I do not worry that someone will
remove every single opportunity
for me to thrive.
Still, I am connected to, inseparable from,
this young man.
Blessed are the poor, in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus. (Commas restored) .
Jesus was as usual talking about solidarity: about how we join with others
and, in spirit, feel the world, and suffering, the same as them.
This is the kingdom of owning the other as self, the self as other;
that transforms grief into
peace and delight.
I, and you, might enter the heaven
of right here
through this door.
In this spirit, knowing we are blessed,
we might remain poor.

--Alice Walker (1944- ) African American novelist, poet, and activist.

This poem refers to the story of Mohammed Bouazizi, who on December 17, 2010 set himself on fire in response to constant government harassment, and act of protest that helped spark the Arab Spring.

Scripture Reference: Matthew 5:1-12

The Wise Men

Step softly, under snow or rain,
To find the place where men can pray;
The way is all so very plain
That we may lose the way.

Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore
On tortured puzzles from our youth,
We know all labyrinthine lore,
We are the three wise men of yore,
And we know all things but the truth.

We have gone round and round the hill
And lost the wood among the trees,
And learnt long names for every ill,
And served the mad gods, naming still
The furies the Eumenides.

The gods of violence took the veil
Of vision and philosophy,
The Serpent that brought all men bale,
He bites his own accursed tail,
And calls himself Eternity.

Go humbly…it has hailed and snowed…
With voices low and lanterns lit;
So very simple is the road,
That we may stray from it.

The world grows terrible and white,
And blinding white the breaking day;
We walk bewildered in the light,
For something is too large for sight,
And something much too plain to say.

The Child that was ere worlds begun
(…We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone…)
The Child that played with moon and sun
Is playing with a little hay.

The house from which the heavens are fed,
The old strange house that is our own,
Where trick of words are never said,
And Mercy is as plain as bread,
And Honour is as hard as stone.

Go humbly, humble are the skies,
And low and large and fierce the Star;
So very near the Manger lies
That we may travel far.

Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
To roar to the resounding plain.
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,
For God Himself is born again,
And we are little children walking
Through the snow and rain.

--G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English journalist, essayist, apologist, and poet

Scripture reference: Matthew 2:1-12

Epiphany Poem

The red king
Came to a great water. He said,
Here the journey ends.
No keel or skipper on this shore.

The yellow king
Halted under a hill. He said,
Turn the camels round.
Beyond, ice summits only.

The black king
Knocked on a city gate. He said,
All roads stop here.
These are gravestones, no inn.

The three kings
Met under a dry star.
There, at midnight,
The star began its singing.

The three kings
Suffered salt, snow, skulls.
They suffered the silence
Before the first word.


--George Mackay Brown (1921-1996) Scots poet from the Orkney islands and convert to Catholicism.

Scripture reference: Matthew 2:1-12 (Feast of the Epiphany)

Sonnet 19: When I Consider How My Light is Spent

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.

--John Milton (1608-1674), English poet, Protestant, politician, intellectual. 

Scriptural Reference: Matthew 25: 14-30 (The Parable of the Talents), Proper 28A

Image: Willem de Poorter, "The Parable of the Talents, or Minas," 17th century, oil on panel.

This poem was written after Milton went blind, and therefore worries that he has lost his chance to truly serve God in these circumstances. However, as a Protestant, Milton then states that God doesn't need human help, and that other ways to serve God will present themselves to him.

On the parables of the Mustard Seed

Who ever saw the mustard-plant,
wayside weed or tended crop,
grow tall as a shrub, let alone a tree, a treeful
of shade and nests and songs?
Acres of yellow,
not a bird of the air in sight.

No, He who knew
the west wind brings
the rain, the south wind
thunder, who walked the field-paths
running His hand along wheatstems to glean
those intimate milky kernels, good
to break on the tongue,

was talking of miracle, the seed
within us, so small
we take it for worthless, a mustard-seed, dust,
nothing.
               Glib generations mistake
the metaphor, not looking at fields and trees,
not noticing paradox. Mountains
remain unmoved.

Faith is rare, He must have been saying,
prodigious, unique —
one infinitesimal grain divided
like loaves and fishes,

as if from a mustard-seed
a great shade-tree grew. That rare,
that strange: the kingdom

                                            a tree. The soul
a bird. A great concourse of birds
at home there, wings among yellow flowers.
The waiting
kingdom of faith, the seed
waiting to be sown.


-- Denise Levertov (1923-1997), Anglo-American poet and convert to Catholicism

Scriptural reference: Proper 21C, Luke 17:5-10; Proper 12A, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

And a Good Friday Was Had By All

You men there, keep those women back
and God Almighty he laid down
on the crossed timber and Old Silenus
my offsider looked at me as if to say
nice work for soldiers, your mind’s not your own 

once you sign that dotted line Ave Caesar
and all that malarkey Imperator Rex

well this Nazarene
didn’t make it any easier
really – not like the ones
who kick up a fuss so you can
do your block and take it out on them
                                                            Silenus 

held the spikes steady and I let fly
with the sledge-hammer, not looking
on the downswing trying hard not to hear 

over the women’s wailing the bones give way 

the iron shocking the dumb wood.

Orders is orders, I said after it was over
nothing personal you understand – we had a 

drill-sergeant once thought he was God but he wasn’t 

a patch on you

then we hauled on the ropes
and he rose in the hot air
like a diver just leaving the springboard, arms spread 

so it seemed
over the whole damned creation
over the big men who must have had it in for him

and the curious ones who’ll watch anything if it’s free
with only the usual women caring anywhere
and a blind man in tears.

--Bruce Dawe (1930-2020) Australian poet and academic

Scriptural reference: Matthew 27:32-56

Image: Crucifixion from the Rabbula Gospels, an illuminated manuscript completed in 586 CE at the monastery of St. John of Zagba and what is today Syria. This is the earliest crucifixion scene known in a manuscript. The full original image, which also includes a resurrection scene, is 13x10.5 inches.

As explained at Christianiconography.info, 

"As in many early Crucifixions, Jesus wears a liturgical "colobium," not the skimpy perizoma of the thieves. The word above the man with the spear can be transliterated as LOGINOS – that is, the soldier Longinus, whose blindness was cured by the blood that flowed from Jesus' side. On the other side of the cross is the man with the sponge; in front, the soldiers dicing for Jesus' garment. The woman on the left is most likely the Virgin Mary, standing beside St. John. She resembles Mary Magdalene in the lower panel, but is not as slim or erect.

The lower panel presents the Resurrection as told in Matthew 28. In the center we see how "the guards were struck with terror, and became as dead men" at the opening of the tomb (verse 4). The tomb is modeled on the actual Aedicula in Jerusalem. An angel sits on a sarcophagus beside it and tells "Mary Magdalen and the other Mary" that Jesus is risen and they should go and tell the disciples (verses 5-7). On the right Jesus greets the women and they "took hold of his feet, and adored him" (verses 8-10).

The "other Mary" may be the "mother of James" who accompanies Mary Magdalene in Mark 16:1. However, it is just possible that the haloed woman in the lower panel is not Mary Magdalene but Mary the mother of Jesus. The Golden Legend cites two early Christian writers supporting the opinion that it was to his mother that Christ first appeared, and that she was the one who told the disciples (Ryan, I, 222). If that is what the image is asserting, then the "other Mary" would most likely be Mary Magdalene."

Enemies

If you are not to become a monster,
you must care what they think.
If you care what they think,

how will you not hate them,
and so become a monster
of the opposite kind? From where then

is love to come—love for your enemy
that is the way of liberty?
From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go

free of you, and you of them;
they are to you as sunlight
on a green branch. You must not

think of them again, except
as monsters like yourself,
pitiable because unforgiving.


--Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, writer, agrarian, from Entries: Poems, 1994.

Scripture reference: Matthew 5:44, All Saints' Day, Year A

The Calm

Our storm is past, and that storm’s tyrannous rage,

A stupid calm, but nothing it, doth ‘suage.
The fable is inverted, and far more
A block afflicts, now, than a stork before.
Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves, or us;
In calms, Heaven laughs to see us languish thus.
As steady’as I can wish that my thoughts were,
Smooth as thy mistress’ glass, or what shines there,
The sea is now; and, as the isles which we
Seek, when we can move, our ships rooted be.
As water did in storms, now pitch runs out;
As lead, when a fir’d church becomes one spout.
And all our beauty, and our trim, decays,
Like courts removing, or like ended plays.
The fighting-place now seamen’s rags supply;
And all the tackling is a frippery.
No use of lanthorns; and in one place lay
Feathers and dust, to-day and yesterday.
Earth’s hollownesses, which the world’s lungs are,
Have no more wind than the upper vault of air.
We can nor lost friends nor sought foes recover,
But meteor-like, save that we move not, hover.
Only the calenture together draws
Dear friends, which meet dead in great fishes’ jaws;
And on the hatches, as on altars, lies
Each one, his own priest, and own sacrifice.
Who live, that miracle do multiply,
Where walkers in hot ovens do not die.
If in despite of these we swim, that hath
No more refreshing than our brimstone bath;
But from the sea into the ship we turn,
Like parboil’d wretches, on the coals to burn.
Like Bajazet encag’d, the shepherds’ scoff,
Or like slack-sinew’d Samson, his hair off,
Languish our ships. Now as a myriad
Of ants durst th’ emperor’s lov’d snake invade,
The crawling gallies, sea-gaols, finny chips,
Might brave our pinnaces, now bed-rid ships.
Whether a rotten state, and hope of gain,
Or to disuse me from the queasy pain
Of being belov’d and loving, or the thirst
Of honour, or fair death, out-push’d me first,
I lose my end; for here, as well as I,
A desperate may live, and a coward die.
Stag, dog, and all which from or towards flies,
Is paid with life or prey, or doing dies.
Fate grudges us all, and doth subtly lay
A scourge, ‘gainst which we all forget to pray.
He that at sea prays for more wind, as well
Under the poles may beg cold, heat in hell.
What are we then? How little more, alas,
Is man now, than before he was? He was
Nothing; for us, we are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves, still disproportion it.
We have no power, no will, no sense; I lie,
I should not then thus feel this misery.

--John Donne (1572-1631), English priest, poet, and essayist

Scripture reference: Matthew 14:22-33, Proper 14A

On the Parables of the Mustard Seed

Who ever saw the mustard-plant,
wayside weed or tended crop,
grow tall as a shrub, let alone a tree, a treeful
of shade and nests and songs?
Acres of yellow,
not a bird of the air in sight.

No. He who knew
the west wind brings
the rain, the south wind
thunder, who walked the field-paths
running His hand along wheatstems to glean
those intimate milky kernels, good
to break on the tongue,

was talking of miracle, the seed
within us, so small
we take it for worthless, a mustard-seed, dust,
nothing.
                Glib generations mistake
the metaphor, not looking at fields and trees,
not noticing paradox. Mountains
remain unmoved.

Faith is rare, He must have been saying,
prodigious, unique –
one infinitesimal grain divided
like loaves and fishes,

as if from a mustard-seed
a great shade-tree grew. That rare,
that strange: the kingdom

                                                a tree. The soul
a bird. A great concourse of birds
at home there, wings among yellow flowers.

The waiting
kingdom of faith, the seed
waiting to be sown.

--Denise Levertov (1923-1997) Anglo-American poet, daughter of a Hasidic father who became an Anglican priest; his daughter was an agnostic, but converted to Catholicism later in life.

Image: James B. Janknegt, World's Smallest Seed

Scriptural reference: Proper 12A, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52; Proper 21C, Luke 17:5-10; 

Good Ground

I love your simple story of the sower,

With all its close attention to the soil,

Its movement from the knowledge to the knower,

Its take on the tenacity of toil.


I feel the fall of seed a sower scatters,

So equally available to all,

Your story takes me straight to all that matters,

Yet understands the reasons why I fall.


Oh deepen me where I am thin and shallow,

Uproot in me the thistle and the thorn,

Keep far from me that swiftly snatching shadow,

That seizes on your seed to mock and scorn.


O break me open, Jesus, set me free,

Then find and keep your own good ground in me.

-- Malcom Guite (1954-), English priest, poet, musician, and theologian

Add caption

Jesus is Tempted in the Wilderness: Art for Lent 1A

12th Century New Roman Mosaic of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God in Monreale in Sicily

Felix Jospeh Barrias, The Temptation of Christ by the Devil, 1860

James Tissot, Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness (Jésus tenté dans le désert), 1886-1894, one of 350 watercolors in his episcopal series on the life of Christ from the Bible, from the Brooklyn Museum of Art

James Tissot, Jesus Carried Up to the Pinnacle of the Temple (Jésus porté sur le pinacle du Temple), 1886-1894, from the Brooklyn Museum

James Tissot (French, 1836-1902). Jesus Transported by a Spirit onto a High Mountain (Jésus transporté par l'esprit sur une haute montagne), 1886-1894, from the Brooklyn Museum of Art

James Tissot, Jesus Ministered to by Angels (Jésus assisté par les anges), 1886-1894, from the Brooklyn Museum of Art

Ducci di Buoninsegna, detail, The Temptation of Christ, 1310

Eric Armusik, The Temptation of Christ, 2011

James B. Janknegt, The Temptation of Christ, 1990

Relevant Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11

Beatitudes

Grant, O Lord, that having put aside every weight and the sins that do so easily beset us; and every motion both of flesh and spirit which is contrary to the will of Your holiness:

We may be meek, that so we may inherit the earth:
May be peacemakers, that so we may be called children of God:
May be merciful, that so we may obtain mercy:
May be poor in spirit, that so we may have part in the kingdom of heaven:
May be pure in heart, that so we may see God:
May hunger and thirst after righteousness, that so we may be filled:
May mourn, that so we may be comforted:
And may be prepared for persecutions and reproaches for righteousness’ sake.
That so our reward may be in heaven. 

-- Launcelot Andrewes (1555-1626), English bishop, theologian, and scholar whose feast day is today, in Evelyn Underhill, Evelyn Underhill's Prayer Book.



Image: Cosimo Roselli, The Sermon on the Mount, fresco in the Sistine Chapel, 1481-1482