Reflecting on the Psalms

This past week at Gateway’s Family Journey night we read and thought on the words of Psalm 103. This psalm is full of God’s marvelous works and one of the exercises was to write a poem on our encounter with God’s wonders.

Well, it is always too noisy and the time too short to really write poems so I found one I had written a few years ago. In this land of living skies, God displays his wonders often. Here we go….

Evening Sky

How does God do that?
Shift colours
From brilliant orange
To yellow-blue
Then deepening midnight blue and stars,
Throw in
Wisps of inky cloud
Just for show
And on the north horizon
Brush shifting curls
And sheets of drifting light.

This splendor’s mirrored in the river
As if, in leaving his studio,
The train of God’s garment
Lingered long in the evening sky.

Reflection on Psalm 32

Rejoice in the LORD
Be glad, you pure hearted ones.
This purity is sheer
Gift, not some innate
Character of heart given
To some deserving souls
And not to others
Dammed before they even start.

No, this purity, this gift, pure grace
Undeserved, is free for all.
Even repeat sinners
Like me can take it
With dirty feet ready
For washing, hands open
With nothing to offer back
But thanks.

Rejoice!
Be glad, pure hearted ones!

Betrayers All

Jesus called his closest friends to share his final meal;
Those twelve beloved friends, a Covenant meal.
The Night of Great Remembrance rebirthed a new and greater one.

The betrayer ate. He was invited too. Loved as deeply.
A traitor among them; treacherous heart turning to stone.
“The one to whom I give the bread…”
Did their hands touch? Did Judas see the love filled eyes?
Body and blood choke his swallow as he cut himself out,
Leaving to do his evil task?

Last night we ate at this same table;
Betrayers all.
Our hands touched the body given;
Lips drank the offered life.
We saw his eyes of love and we remembered.
“Is this New Covenant table not a participation?”

Make us to be your body, Christ.
Pour your life blood ‘to us. Heal us
Of our betrayer hearts.
Raise us to this participation;
Reborn in you to bless the world.

Today I worshipped

Today I worshipped
Amongst rocks
And shiny glass bits
Washed up on shore.
Green and purple
Glass, edges rounded,
Tossed up by pounding waves.
Child’s treasure. Burnished glass
And pebble stones
Worn smooth at lakes edge.

Today I worshipped.
Palm Sunday;
And the stones
Cried out his praises,
While I hunted treasures
With a little boy.

I Promise To Come Tomorrow

I walked into her room;
Pink prayer shawl
Draped the foot of the bed.
I drew it up over her shoulders
Whispering words that stirred her.
Many prayers were whispered for you
As the knitting went, row by row,
Are with you now. Her breathing is
Shallowed by drugs to keep the pain at bay.
I think she is more alert
For a moment.
She wants me to pray.
We speak words. She needs more than words.
She needs the freedom of pain free eternity.
It is hard to let go, hard to let her go,
Hard to say the words lest it happen – now.
We hold hands.
And I promise to come tomorrow.

Two Old Men

I sit beside two
Old men
Who talk.
The value of words
And music
Can’t be overestimated
Among the young,
Their students.
And my listening
In?
Does it count as
Eavesdropping?
Or is it only my
Wishing for company
And finding it
In the overhearing?

Lament for a Mad World

Draft copy of some poetry I’m working on.

Lament for a Mad World

The darkness is thick
It clings and blinds the innocent,
If there are any innocent
Left.  The madness has devoured
My naïveté, and laid me waste;
Stripped to dry bones
Of doubt and fear.
Why? I ask, and get no answer
But silence.  So I take the silence
And in it find One answer,
“I have overcome.  All is not
Lost.  I Am.”

Hide me in that knowledge
Like a refuge. Remind me
Of the saints gone on before.
The darkness could not choke
Their light nor hide your power.
And though it seems
That all around me now
Is bound by chains of night,
A Light, the Word
Has come to free us all.