The Song of the Garden

It was in a garden where the firstfruits of our race found that joy and life was there that Providence had placed. But there inside a garden wall of shrubs and trees and berries all our cancer sin began to bloom The death of light the world of doom. – It was in a garden […]

The Hands of Christ

He had the hands of a man,

grown from curled-up baby hands

to dirty, in-a-hurry boy hands

to hands that could wield

a hammer and nails;

—

hands obscured for thirty years

in seas of Jewish hands;

revealed—man-defying Teacher hands,

hands that could hold

and shelter and bleed;

—

hands, nearer with every breath,

to nail-intruded hands,

to weighed-with-the-sins-of-the-world hands,

the hands still moving,

washing dirt from feet.

—

His hands are the hands of God,

blameless, righteous, holy hands,

the died-and-lives-forever hands,

the hands that welcome

sinners into life.

Till the End

No darkness, no cross, no death-wound of heart could keep Christ from his friends. They ate and talked and sang and slept while He loved them till the end.

Mary’s Memoriam

Broken like a casket box– then waves of sudden cold puddle on the head and hair dripping off the beard. Overpowering all else an earthen, floral note– extravagant, and rich embarrassment of eager zeal. – Lasting for a moment–just the ostentatious show outpoured, and used and sudden–gone. a year of lavished work. Just so–the trail […]

Wonders

That the Lord of the universe should make Himself small, a microscopic speck on a planet obscured in light years of galaxies, is a wonder. That the Holy One, ablaze with purity, should walk straight into the ugliness of this world and eat with sinners is another. But there is a greater wonder— that the […]

The Art of Teaching

Like gently playing chords first loud then…nonchalantly………soft; the secret siphoning of information from my mind to where my students sit and accidentally learn.

Favorite Song

I like a lot of songs, but not many like me, not out of rudeness— real songs are not rude— they are just busy with notes and lyrics and keeping pace. But this song must have eyes for kindred spirits, must be the voice to unspoken enchantments, because every word and every beat turn me […]

Shelob II

The spider who threatened my head as she trespassed across the wrong bed Mis-measured the distance of the flip-flop resistance and now lies in state with the dead. … Based on a true I-wish-it-would’ve-ended-this-way story The true fate of Shelob II is currently unknown. It is unclear whether she met her demise in the great […]

Things Exist

Things exist to be, they said to pulse, and jive, and jest. No deeper mean, just lean, they said for things exist to be. – But all is bright and rich we feel, a vasting meadow span that makes our life-light keen, we feel for things exist…in He

Awake and Sing

Awake, oh heart, and sing for whatever today may bring is a dear and precious thing from the hand of our God— the wonders we couldn’t have dreamt of or the solemn grief-proofs of love descend alike from above— so sing! And the foe will be hushed. .