Snowflakes

Tags

Beauty, Culture, Grace, Nature, Poem

Snowflakes fall in feathery clusters

Out on the pond and on the lawn,

Dusting buried banks, snowflakes dance

Across slight slopes, brown-reed ringed and bristling

With cattails cantankerous, whistling

In the soft chill winds;

Snowflakes scurry over fence and brush and branch

Each twisting flurry swift and free,

Somehow serene yet wild, wonderfully

Given common beauty, common grace to all

From up above the snowflakes fall.

Adulation

Tags

Christianity, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, Poem, Praise, Thanks, Thanksgiving, Trinity, Worship

Bless the Fount of all good gifts,

Hearts adore and spirits lift

To God the ever-generous

Who pours His blessings out on us.

–

Bless the Father, Spirit, Son,

Gracious Giver Three-in-One

–

Bless the Father, luminous

Yet cloud-enveloped numinous,

Maker, Master over all

Merciful to those who call.

–

Bless the Son our Life and Lord,

Creation’s mighty Master-Word,

God-made-man our souls to save,

Victor over sin and grave.

–

Bless the Spirit, Holy Breath,

Breathing life that outlives death;

Spirit-King, forever reign,

Adored in worship’s holy strain.

–

Bless the Father, Spirit, Son,

Gracious Giver Three-in-One

–

Bless the Fount of all good gifts,

Hearts adore and spirits lift

To God the ever-generous

Who pours His blessings out on us.

Bright with Hope

Tags

Art, Bird, Christianity, Comfort, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Easter, Faith, God, Holy Week, Hope, Joy, Life, Painting, Pandemic, Peace, Poem, Resurrection, Spring

“Bright with Hope”

How you sing,

Here in our gloom and tragedy,

Proclaiming Spring—but

All we see is

Sickness and fear,

No sense of solace, no glimmer

That God is near.

How you sing!

You are the hint

Of better things in view

Of life renewed, bright tints abloom,

Of newness springing through, beyond

Our grief and gloom.

Here you sing,

Amid our sorrow,

Unabashed, bright with hope

Resurrecting.

The Parable of Spring

Tags

Comfort, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Eschatology, Faith, Hope, Joy, Life, Nature, Pandemic, Peace, Poem, Resurrection, Spring

Rain is in the air,

and green upon the grass, upon

the lichened limbs and trunks of trees,

green of impending spring, eager

from the wash of rain; the buds chafe

to blush with lush again

and earth and sky forgets the plague,

forgets the curse, so breathless

to rehearse the yearly pageant of

the fall’s reverse.

Prophesy, you cleansing rains,

you greening fields and prickling buds!

Make of our memento mori

the promise of new life to be.

Divine Trinity

Tags

Christianity, God, Mystery, Poem, Praise, Sanctification, Trinity, Truth

O sacred Mystery,

God wonderful, God thrice-holy,

Unmeasured by infinity,

Enduring eternally,

One God in Persons three,

Distinction in unity,

Divine Trinity.

***

Consuming purity,

Come sanctify me,

God most mighty, God most free,

Shape me to your glory,

Divine Trinity

Regenesis

Tags

Christianity, Faith, God, holiness, Holy Spirit, Life, Poem, Salvation, Sanctification

Collect me, Holiness in Heaven,

from my scattered ruminations,

weary wishes and weakly-faced

temptations; gather me up, profoundly

graced with shalom sweet

and strange wholeness of Heaven;

begin anew this broken work,

speak light against the fading day,

and over my misshapen way, Spirit

of holiness, descend, each

shattered piece to mend.

Snow Dancers

Tags

Beauty, Nature, Poem, Snow, Winter

Out on the field of tawny yellow

winter’s drear, and among the bare

skeletal branches of forlorn trees

plays a breeze slyly slight;

the sere sky glows with veiled light,

a beauty strange and unlooked for,

and out on the field of barren blond

snow-flurries dance, they wheel and rush

a strange romance of winter demure, a-blush

with half-concealed glory.

Snow-dancers amid the stark and cold,

you coyly call, softly unfold the mystery

of beauty bursting through the bleak,

of love in clouded seasons,

and glory waiting to be.

The Mystery

Tags

Christmas, God, God the Son, Grace, Incarnation, Jesus Christ, Mercy, Mystery, Nativity, Poem, Salvation

Awake, my heart,
awake, my voice,
arise and sing
the mystery;
recite, rejoice
in this such strange
and wondrous word
which angels uttered
and shepherds heard:
the Christ is come,
bright heaven’s gift,
made one with man
man’s soul to lift
from sin’s grim mire,
death’s grip to break,
and from the ruin
of wretched pride
mankind remake.

Awake, my soul,
on Christmas morn;
the Son of God
for us is born.
The light has come,
the dawn draws near
and every shade
of shame or fear
is vanquished
now and evermore.

Awake, my heart,
rejoice, adore
the mystery:
to us is given
the Light of heaven.
May joy abide
with each and all
this blessed Christmastide.

All That Matters

Tags

Death, God, Grace, Hope, Life, Poem

“It matters not, though death draw nigh

In curtained chamber fair,

Or on the deep, ‘mid wrecking blasts,

If He be with us there:

And may my ransomed soul at last,

Time’s storm-tried voyage o’er,

Sit down, like Mary, at his feet,

And listen evermore.”

-Lydia Huntley Sigourney, from “The Third Day at Sea”

The Light on the Frost

Tags

Hope, Poem

Morning light shines into
A world of frost and sorrow
Heaven’s promise, prophecy
Of tomorrow’s life anew;
It is hard some days to believe
This holy and true hope
For healing from life’s griefs.
Some days we mourn and wait,
Incomplete…and yet we see
The light upon the frost,
The bud upon the tree.