9/26/2011
#218 PILGRIM FIRE
Pilgrim Fire
The future shrinks…Dana Gioia
The dark ring slowly closes in
Around our flickering fire.
The coals are slowly growing cold
Like this brief life's desire.
Outside the shrinking ring of light
Lupine eyes are glowing bright.
The smoky souls of ancient trees
First burn our eyes then usher in
Troops of dancing memories
Of things that were and other things
That might have been.
Time flees away before our eyes
That day by day are growing dim.
Words move too fast for our slow ears,
Our sleep is troubled by a host of fears.
And so we pray by night and day
And sing the Psalms that make it clear
Within His flock we need not fear.
Just when the future's narrowed
To a point, and darkness seems complete
We cross the veil and see the Son
And worship at His piercéd feet
And shout with joy for all things new
That faith has always held are true.
We dance on streets of gold like glass
While ages of ages slowly pass
And time, though passing, never presses
And He who made us always blesses.
JS 8/03
18
9/19/2011
#217 AMONG THE HALLOWS
AMONG THE HALLOWS
Ordinariness, in a word, opens out into mystery, and the thing that men are supposed to do with mystery is to hallow it, for it all belongs to the Holy One. Tom Howard
Beyond the veil of ordinary things,
The door, the room, the meal, the work, the play,
There press in on every side…
Mighty Mysteries, Ineffable Immensities,
Heavenly Places, Spiritual Forces,
Rulers, Powers, Princes, Glorious Habitations
Incandescent Vistas, Consuming Fires, Unbearable Splendors,
Seraphim, Cherubim, Archangels, Angels,
Eternity Incomprehensible,
Unapproachable Light,
Shekinah,
Glory, Glory, Glory!
The sounds of…
Celestial Dancing
Myriad Hallelujahs
Trumpets
Flutes
Timbrels
Lyres
Harps
Bagpipes
Tambourines
Cymbals
Silent Thunder,
Echoes of...
Camelot
Narnia
Perelandra
Middle Earth.
We walk among the hallows
In the presence of the unseen
That would ravish and terrify us
Were the veil stripped away.
We are the poorer for our eyes
That often seeing, do not see,
Our ears that often hearing, do not hear,
Our hearts that all too often stop
On the surface of
The ordinary things.
JS 12/02
12
9/12/2011
#215 ANNIE
ANNIE
A Parable of Grace
Abused,
Abandoned,
Sick unto death,
Tick ridden,
Coated with burrs,
A stray puppy,
Without a name,
A prospect, or
A hope in the world,
Showed up one day
On the porch
Of the house
On Bethel Road.
Jean knelt down,
Carried her in,
Cleaned her up,
Nursed her back
To life and health,
Gave her a name,
Adopted her
Into the family,
And taught her
To obey.
(Once,
When Jean no longer could come to the table,
We sat eating lunch with our plates on our knees.
Annie's inquisitive nose got too close to my plate
And I told her, "Lay down, Annie!"
She just looked at me.
Jean said, "You have to use correct grammar with this
dog.
Tell her to lie down." I did and she obeyed at once.)
At the time,
Jean saw nothing sacramental
In her service to Annie.
But the whole affair
Was a clear parable
Of grace.
As it was with Little Orphan Annie,
So it is with all of us
Who believe as Jean believed.
We find ourselves
Outside the house of God,
Sick unto death,
Without hope in the world.
There is nothing in us
To commend us to God,
To earn his favor or his mercy.
Yet He comes out of His house,
And in loving mercy
"… raises the poor from the dust
And lifts the needy from the ash heap,
To make them sit with princes…"
He heals all our diseases
Gives us a new name
And teaches us to live in obedience
As adopted members of His family.
And it is all of Grace.
As we look back on Jean's dealings with Annie,
And as we look back on God's dealings with us,
We can begin to appreciate the truth
Of the old Portuguese Proverb:
Deus escrive direito por lynhas tortas
"God writes straight along crooked lines."
JS 4/03
13
9/06/2011
ANOTHER BIG SPEECH
ANOTHER BIG SPEECH
The trouble with socialism is that sooner or later
you run out of other people’s money to spend.
Margaret Thatcher
He has called together
A full Congress of Baboons
And all his lesser creatures
Across the land.
He stands before them,
His chin high and lifted up,
Thinking himself a great
Philosopher-King.
His head bobbles between
Two teleprompters,
Lecturing the assembled baboons
And Lesser mortals before their tubes
On his latest greatest plan,
Conceived in a faculty lounge and
Hatched in the clubhouse
At Martha’s Vineyard.
Behold this weightless cipher,
This strange shrunken spectator,
This arrogant “leader from behind,”
This nobody posing as the
Leader of the most powerful nation
On earth--he has nothing new to say.
Like a turtle on a post,
He did not get there by himself,
He doesn’t belong there,
He doesn’t know what to do
While he’s up there,
He’s elevated beyond his ability to function,
And he has no idea how to get down.
And lo, the cupboard of the Nanny State is
utterly bare. God help us all!
