With His Wounds We Are Healed

We stumble, bleeding from our wounds, weak from loss. We carry damaged hearts—throbbing arrhythmias—pain, pain, and numbness, pain, numbness, numbness, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain… We run, racing our overprotective minds to safety—to darkness. We hide, we shield, we bandage, but the wounds are infected. We cannot heal ourselves. Oh Jesus, Lord of all, who […]

The Spoil of the Strong

“And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots.” ~ Matthew 27:35 Greedy hands reached out eagerly to seize the woven fabric of the clothes lately worn by Jesus. Heated words, and shaken hands, and rips of sword sharp severing as the earthly garment that good and noble garment so lately dignified by him […]

Stricken

the SNAP of harsh rebellion echoed, tought and loud— the SPLAT of hot ingratitude that specked the watching crowd. – CRACKS of stiffened justice for all the brazen lies the CUFFS of wounded parent-griefs for running from the wise. – The cutting STAB of lust-ish shame now bleeding, oozing soars of living life for sensing […]

Well Acquainted with Grief

Yes, He knew grief—knew him like an old enemy. From the first betrayal—all His care and attention pitched for a bite of fruit—through the latest— a kiss on the cheek, an 11-man flight, a swear word on the lips of his side-kick—His heart bled. He knew the whiplash of loss; He had stared into the […]

Surely He has born our Griefs

Jesus came to heal the sick the weak, the sad, the sore, the ones stretched out in dire need the wretched and the poor. – You thought He only saved from sins? But Have you never read: – Lame men walked and mute men talked. Peter’s mother lived. – Where e’er they met him, demons […]

Better

Give us a king like Saul—handsome and tall— to ride out before us, a king like David—charming and skilled— to conquer our enemies, a king like Solomon—winsome and shrewd— to build our wealth, we prayed. But God gave us another man with a beard who would have been lost in the crowd if He had […]

Epitaph of Jesus “The King of the Jews”

Where‘er he walked he was despised: we shook our heads, we rolled our eyes. Rejected one who dares to call himself the truth and us the thrall in dungeons dark and full of lies— this is why you bore the sores! you wore the sins no man endures – (and only God Himself can rise). […]

A Shoot Out of the Ground

The earth around like hardened clay, Slabs of sun-baked flatness, Cracked with fissure lines of age all wrinkled up in heat. Nothing grows in desert air nothing young, or green or fair. – The floods once came and surged the flats you should have seen the waters— bearing all in whackish rush soaking in the […]

Come, O Gentle Light of Dawn

Come, O gentle Light of dawn, and rest your hand upon my weary head. Come, sense the sickness in my soul and dress and tend the whole where I have bled. Spread your warmth upon my cold for You alone can mold and wake the dead. Come, and dawn from glow to blaze, and speak […]

The Visitor

Love stood knocking at the door and when I offered silence he waited, patient, on the stoop and called my name. – Each sally I would feign to make to leave the door and quiet the tiny blurt of conscience-prod— I saw he watched the frame. – I turned from him to read the world […]