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 […]

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 […]

Gift

As dark as coal the cloudless night so cold as snow the ground. Harder than the frosted dust the hearts of men around. Thick silence knit the skies to earth, as guilty Adam dreamed of paradise he could not reach of life that might abound. – The night was split in cries of light a […]

Shadows

Shadows (shadows only) see the infant king. The shadow of a tired mother head upon the lap of a man, too tired to sleep. The shadows of the animals that peer in interest down at their firs lodger–in their trough. The shadows of the shepherds, hot and out of breath, that smell of sheep and […]

Pondering

That lucid moment that parted all the pain behind from all the pain ahead— like God parting the sea and coming through to meet her— shined— brighter than the star, brighter than the angel hosts, brighter than the gleam in shepherds’ eyes. This was no stable— but a palace. These were no shepherds— but princes. […]

I Believe

I believe Christmas matters because the whelming weight of sundown cold as dark presses in on us and reminds our souls why we need the light – I believe Christmas matters because pagans huddled up in huts dead as dark pressured by the prince of deep malevolence need to see the Life – I believe […]

Stronghold

The Lord is my rock; the quake cannot shake Him. The Lord is my tower; the hail cannot break Him. The Lord is my anchor; the seas cannot push Him. The Lord is my sky; the earth cannot squish Him. The Lord is my song; thunder can’t drown Him. The Lord is my flight; lightning […]