Where is Jesus? Poetry helps me reach into and beyond reality. The news out of Louisville, Kentucky this week hit hard for me and my friends. Breonna Taylor’s murderers are not held accountable and it is all very legal. The worst part for me was that so many Christians I know were running to defendContinue reading “Hope From a Couple of Poets”
Category Archives: poetry
If I Can Remember My Dreams
On vacation in the woods, I am trying to tune into my dreams. It’s working. I always ask my boys each morning if they had an dreams during the night, so I thought I should point that question at myself more seriously. I sleep very soundly and rarely remember my dreams. I lament the lossContinue reading “If I Can Remember My Dreams”
A Friday Poem (and an endorsement for the Comfort Retreat)
Some context I wrote this poem at the Comfort Retreat last year. We spent a good part of the day groping inthe spiritual dark for something to hold on to. We found it in each others hands and our own hearts. we found it in shared songs and stories. We found it in showing theContinue reading “A Friday Poem (and an endorsement for the Comfort Retreat)”
Forcing It – a Friday sonnet
My poet’s pen is a bit dried up of late. Not sure why. This poem form last year gets at some of the feelings of trying to make something happen that isn’t happening. I like the suggested submission to the concrete shards on the urban beach most. Something about smoothed over brokenness seems to beContinue reading “Forcing It – a Friday sonnet”
Holy Geese
A poem about the Holy Spirit as the wild goose of Celtic Christian Iconography
Turning to Before and Behind — A Friday Sonnet
There was power in the walking and the making. Maintaining the physical space added a concreteness to my prayer. This is the main feature of walking a labyrinth in the first place, but it was even batter to make the way for future me and future loved ones to walk it, even the grandchildren of the labyrinth (my children) who mostly miss what I am doing as I journey to the center. One day, I pray they know the power that can be met person to person using this walking tool along with many others. Until that day, and for that future, and toward it in me and them, I’ll walk it every time I’m here.
Tumbled Open Good Friday Prayer
It’s Good Friday. I wrote us a poem that’s also a prayer. Hope on a death day. Jesus was the first one, but now they are all that for those who are in Christ. One of Circle of Hope’s blogs celebrates death days of those who have gone before — Celebrating Our Transhistorical Body . Today,Continue reading “Tumbled Open Good Friday Prayer”
Swallows Show — A Saturday Sonnet
Since the Covid 19 quarantine began, I have spent a lot of time sitting at a little desk I put in my bedroom (now office). My lovely little room has windows which face te lake on which I live. Newton Lake in spring and summer is home to a colony of tree swallows which dart across the water in the morning and evening in dizzying patterns. They make me feel big inside. They “make the water wide” I say in the poem.
Alas – A Sonnet for the party we will have
Rainy Day Longing I sat down this morning and looked out my bedroom window to the rainy water of Newton Creek and wished with all the melancholy of the gray day to be rid of this virus. “Alas” was the word for the feeling. Almost all sigh with a hint of french pity in it’sContinue reading “Alas – A Sonnet for the party we will have”
Poolside – a love poem to many moments and a prayer
Poolside Heat baking up Through terry cloth towel — Drying me up as the sun dried me down. And red-yellow dancers Amorphously moved Between the backs of my eyelids and eyes. Seal slick hair, Tufting up in the air As I turned back from fish into boy. Sometimes so hot If I lay there tooContinue reading “Poolside – a love poem to many moments and a prayer”
The Sudden Silences — a Friday Sonnet
The actually physiology of your ears might help you pray in silence. I’m intensifying my contemplative prayer practice during Lent and thinking about how to get above, below or behind the chatter of my churning brain. It has to do with hearing the silence for me. It has to do with tuning in to theContinue reading “The Sudden Silences — a Friday Sonnet”
First Flight – another Friday Sonnet
Here’s a sonnet trying to capture a moment and make it more than it was, and exactly what it was. It was with a bird, of course. Happy Friday!
Master, where are you staying?
If Unseen Man turning around on the street, What did you forget? Unaware I’m watching, You skip The show that lets us know You aren’t a lunatic. No finger to your temple, No shoulders shrugged, Or arms outstretched, No palm to the forehead, Or even an expression. You just turn around To get yourContinue reading “Master, where are you staying?”
Sleepwalkers – a Friday Sonnet
Sleepwalkersfor George MacDonald When darkness burns a hole in all our views, And knowledge-ash-curled edges seed dismay, Can we know anything we know we knew? Will you show us all and call this today? We see few truths with heartless, burned out eyes; Twice-seared with every disappointment first, And second by the fire’s condemning lies.Continue reading “Sleepwalkers – a Friday Sonnet”
Is Love Enough? A Poetic Meditation
Will the simplicity of loving my neighbor communicate everything I want to tell the world about Jesus? Will it communicate the same to me? It seems too small, and my particular love seems especially too small. Can love be enough? Jesus says so, but wondering never hurt. This is a bit of a ditty withContinue reading “Is Love Enough? A Poetic Meditation”
A Poem for New Creation
Kainos Ktisis (for Francis Quarles) A fourth dimension that’s more than math, And more than hypothetically true, New Creation makes a walkable path Through actual me and actual you, Here and now revealed by an ancient holy one who Let old things go and look! — everything has become new. A feeling on theContinue reading “A Poem for New Creation”
New Birds — a poem
New Birds The low, pink-gold light of an evening in winter Made new birds in the tree Behind my house. Standing underneath and looking up, I was astonished by Their tropical candescence, Bright bursts of feathers on their breasts Which glowed like embers As they flitted westward, Following the pull of the Brightness which hadContinue reading “New Birds — a poem”
Four Advent Sonnets
Four Advent Sonnets for my 2019 Christmas Story Ever since I was seven years old I have written a Christmas story with my family. This is a cherished tradition. I invite you into my living room to share in what I wrote this year. Advent has traditional characters that help us walk through the activeContinue reading “Four Advent Sonnets”
A New Sonnet: Facing the Eternal Word
Channeling Something True I’m slowly memorizing 1 John 3. Some scholars doubt that the same person who wrote the Gospel of John also wrote the letter of 1 John. They cite Greek grammar differences for this assertion. Pseudopigraphy is the fancy word for false attribution in ancient texts. It was not uncommon in ancient communities.Continue reading “A New Sonnet: Facing the Eternal Word”
We Know More Than We Comprehend
I was on retreat trying not to question my instincts too much, because retreats are basically practice for listening to the Spirit and your instincts and the Spirit often sound the same. Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” came to mind. I’m a big Gerard Manley Hopkins fan and there are kingfishers onContinue reading “We Know More Than We Comprehend”
Today, if you hear his voice 